Red Inheritance
by The Loud Guy
Summary: A story of Ganondorf's role in the legend, his relationship with his people and with the land of Hyrule. Covers several games throughout the series.
1. Chapter 1

Nabooru hated Ganondorf when he was like this, when his moroseness came to the forefront and blotted out what joy lurked in his disposition. He was not a man yet, but part of him was already so hard. Who could she blame for that? She didn't know. Maybe it didn't matter. She had always tried to guide him out of it, toward something more in keeping with the sunnier outlook of their sisters and aunts and grandmothers. She would never use the word "sunnier" with him, though; that would probably just set him off.

They stood together on the crest of the ridge overlooking the green fields of Hyrule. Their horses wandered a short distance away, her roan moving everywhere at a light canter and his enormous black stallion reflecting the gravity of his own mood. The wind coming off of the fields was cool and wet, sweet in its humidity.

"It smells like rain," she said. The first words spoken between them in the better part of an hour.

His only response was a dismissive grunt. He never took his gaze away from the fields, though his eyes wandered much further beyond them. She said nothing more. There was no talking to him when he was like this, and trying to pry something out of him would only anger him.

After a long time he spoke.

"It should be ours."

She looked at him, still said nothing.

He waved his hand out at the land beyond, at the green fields and the mountains and the rivers and the cool air which was still caressing the both of them.

"That, all of it. It should be ours. It should be for our people just as much as theirs. We should have the same wind, the same water, the same soft grasses."

"Our people are harder than theirs, my King," which she only called him when he needed to be placated.

"Of course we are. We can survive things they never could. But that does not make it right that we should be _forced_ to. Our sisters live and die in the sands where no other people would even dare to _walk_, but that does not mean that it is right that we should have to do so."

"That is the land of Hylians, my King."

"That is not an argument! That is not even an answer. Why should I allow my sisters to toil underneath the killing sun and walk in wind that cuts through flesh like a hail of razor blades, when it is possible that they should live in a land that would give up its fruits so readily? Why should our lot be so much harder?"

This was an argument that they had had many times before. She could see the emotion building up in him like pressure in a volcano, pushing toward some eruption that she had never seen and lived in fear of.

"Every race is afforded their lot, Ganondorf. Our goddess of the sands watches over us when she would abandon any other race. We live here _because_ no other race could. The Hylians live in those fields because they could live nowhere else. That is the will of the gods, and it is not our place to covet the lots of others."

"_Covet?_" He looked at her for the first time in what must have been hours, his eyes wide with fury. Anyone else - even the witches who had birthed him - would have quailed at that look, but Nabooru knew Ganondorf too well. That look was not for her, in truth. He turned it back out to the fields and beyond, to the distant, hazy spectre of the town that surrounded the castle of the Hylian king.

"Yes," he said, his voice cracking. He was still so young, but something in his voice reverberated deep in her skull. "Yes. That is the will of the gods."

No, she realized, she did not "hate" Ganondorf when he was like this. Hatred was something she had never felt, which she was not sure she was even capable of. She could see it now, though, smoldering in his eyes, wresting away his reason, filling him with such wrath that she had no frame of reference by which to understand it. Old Gerudo kings had been worshipped as gods, and though Ganondorf had no such aspirations she began to wonder at what that might mean. What fire was it that burned in his brain, that drove him to this silent fury? She hoped she would never find out.

Then - just as suddenly and as severely as it had appeared - it was gone, and he turned back to her with a grin, once more the boy king that she had grown up with.

"That's enough sulking," he said. "It's not right for a king and his advisor to comport themselves this way! Let's go back, and we will see if we can find anything interesting in the library."

He put his hand on her shoulder, a brief gesture of familial solidarity - when he was a man it would be different, but as of now he had no concept of gender - and she touched his hand with hers. They let go together, walked to their horses, and rode back. He would be perfectly happy for weeks, now, as if this were something he had to get out of his system every once in a while. But it would not last: before long he would be back here again, and the storm would continue to build behind his eyes.

She wished she knew how one boy could harbor so much hatred.


	2. Chapter 2

That night Ganondorf had a dream. He would forget most of it later, after daylight had burned away the mists of the half-waking world, but while he dreamed it felt very real, very vivid, very strange.

The place where he found himself - had he always been here? It was hard to tell, in the dream - was something like a wide lake that stood ankle-deep, only he could see the sky reflected in it, and only sky above him. He looked around: the reflecting water stretched out forever, so that the sky filled the entirety of his vision. It was dizzying, and he wondered if he might fall, but he spread his feet and found his balance.

The only sound was his own breathing, the gentle slosh of the water against his boots. He was alone in this place, which was so perfect in its serenity that he could not help being affected by it. The anger had left him in the afternoon, but now it was if it had never existed. The silence permeated his mind, becoming an all-consuming thing, and after a long time he knew he had to break it.

"Hello!" He called out to nothing, and then the nothing was shattered.

The presence that appeared behind him (and of course it was behind him, where else would such a nightmare creature appear) exuded a pressure that pried open the mouth of the world, and he felt an enormous wind and rush of heat at his back. He staggered and even as he was turning his hand was on his knife, pulling it out of the sheath on his belt. He had dreamed of terrifying things before, had learned how to fight against the things that he feared.

Still, it was to his credit that he did not drop his weapon.

He could not say what stood before him. It was shaped like a man, but nothing else ascribed humanity to it. It - or he - was too massive by far, partially covered in black scales, and what should have been hair was a field of fire. The creature's body broke out in veins of darkness, which also blacked the yellow in its eyes, at regular intervals - was that the count of its heartbeat? What was this thing?

He looked at its face, and what he saw there made his lungs seize in his chest. This thing looked like _him_, seen through the lens of madness. That is when he began to understand, on some instinctual level, that he was not dreaming this thing, or not _merely_ dreaming it, and that it represented something beyond himself.

"Good evening, boy," the monster said, and its voice was coming from everywhere, coming down from the very sky. "Are you sleeping well?"

Ganondorf raised his knife, point forward, and spoke more bravely than he felt. "Name yourself, creature! Who are you, that you would intrude upon the dreams of a king, would speak so blithely to one of the land's great rulers?"

Things happened very quickly, then. The demon - for demon it must have been - raised its hand, and the air shifted around it. A solid wall of force slammed into Ganondorf as if he had been hit with a speeding boulder, and he found himself tumbling head over heel backwards, the wind knocked from his lungs, the world spinning and spinning. He hit his head as he landed, tumbled badly, felt his leg break (but it was a dream, only a dream). He cried out in agony, his hand still grasping his knife, and when he came to a stop he no longer wanted to move.

"I am a king too," the demon said, and he looked up and it was standing above him. It reached down, the scales on its hand tearing at his skin as it lifted him up into the air by the throat. It held him out at arm's length as if he weighed nothing at all, its face impassive and brutal and terrifying, eyes the color of the Sun and hair that still danced like fire. "You would do well to remember that."

With one hand he reached up and grasped the palm wrapped around his neck, pulling hard enough to draw a breath. The other he swung, driving his knife's blade against the softest part of the demon's elbow, into the joint that hid the tendons holding the bones together.

The blade broke against the demon's skin. He screamed in fury and outrage now, even more than fear.

The demon smiled, its mouth a forest of knives, and Ganondorf wondered if it would take a bite out of his face. He was only a little relieved when it spoke again.

"Know that I am the demon king," it said, "and that I am the source of all darkness."

"You intrude upon my dreams, king of darkness," Ganondorf said, dropping his knife and grasping with both hands to support his throat.

"I come to deliver a warning. Know that all darkness stems from me: broken spirits that wander your land, the monsters that birth themselves from the ether, all senseless strife that has no real cause. My influence causes each of these things. I know much of what is to come. So I will warn you: a war is coming." Ganondorf grew still, watched this thing, and something about the way it smiled spoke to a part of his memory that he hadn't been aware of before. "Ahhh... I see it in your eyes. You have never known war before."

He said nothing in reply.

"You fear for your people, for what this will mean for them. You doubt your own strength. You wonder how many of your sisters will die in the coming conflict." A thought occurred to him, and the thing's smile widened as if in reply. "You wonder how I know about the war. I will tell you: I am going to be the one to cause it. I will whisper lies in the ears of those with weak hearts, and they will seek to destroy each other because they know nothing else. War will sweep across the land like a wildfire, a war like humanity has never waged against itself. Your people, the precious Gerudo?"

"No," Ganondorf said, because he knew what the thing was going to say, could feel the truth of its words roaring through his mind already, the sickly sweet lies caressing fact like a lover, intertwined so that he could not separate the one from the other. "No, no, no!"

"Yes," it said. "Your people will be _annihilated_. They will die under Hylian blades, and your lands will become Hylian colonies. Your people will pass from the world, and there will be nothing left to mark their memory. The very wind will forget their names, and it will be because of _me_."

It could not be said of Ganondorf that he was a young man not given to passions; his very being was tied up in his passions, in the slow-kindled fire that was blazing inside of his brain at all times. But he was not stupid, either, and the coldest, most calculating part of his mind came to the forefront, shoved past the lies, grasped hold of reason.

"You are a liar," Ganondorf said. "Put me down." The demon king stared at him, and the fury flared hot in his brain, just for a second. "_Put me down!_"

"It is so rare," the demon said, "that I am impressed by your kind." He dropped Ganondorf, who collapsed onto the ground and scrambled backward in water - he could not stand and he was no coward, but he was not stupid, either. "I think that you will do nicely."

"Do for what?" He said. He was struggling to situate his good leg under him, trying to understand how he could break his leg in a dream, but neither of those mattered in place of what this thing was trying to say.

"You will find out in your own time, little king. Know that I did tell one truth: war is coming, and you should be prepared. When we meet again, I will give you _much_ to think about."

Would his leg collapse? No. No, he had gotten it. He looked up at the demon, bared his teeth, shifted his weight slightly. He was kneeling, now.

"Pray I never see you after this. I will accept only one thing from you, demon." He pushed himself up, standing on one leg with the other hanging limp beneath him. "If we meet again, I will have your obeisance!"

The world began to scream as the demon's eyes widened, and the sky darkened above them as clouds coalesced from nothing. A distant rumbling built as the Demon King stepped forward, teeth bared, and the mirror-water trembled at its footsteps. Its mouth creaked open, and the words echoed from everywhere like the coming of an Apocalypse.

"You _dare_..."

And then he awoke.

* * *

><p>Nabooru slept lightly these days, as did the many women that she shared her room with. The Gerudo slept together as a community, separated not by family but by age group, because all Gerudo were involved in raising each other and bloodlines meant less to them than to the other races. This many young women living and sleeping together eventually came to share many things, and sleeping habits may have been the least of them.<p>

So she was not alone in hearing him walking down the hall leading to their room, not alone in raising her head at the rhythm of his singular footsteps. There were no torches lit in the hallway, so confident were the Gerudo of their own safety, but they all knew it was him. Thirty breaths were held as one as he rounded the corner of the doorway.

He stepped among them as if he could see in the dark, (it was possible that he could, other Gerudo kings were known to have had such abilities) careful not to disturb any of them, keeping up the illusion that all of them were still sleeping.

He came to her, as she knew he would. She pretended to be asleep as he knelt next to her, looked down at her, and then lay beside her. She was suddenly aware of his body, of his size: even curled up he was longer than she was, and she could not help feeling his breath against her neck. He reached over her with one arm, fumbled for her hand, took her fingers in his. She opened her eyes in the dark, then. There was nothing sexual in this: he had come to her because he did not want to be alone.

She squeezed his hand, the only sign she gave that she was not asleep.

"I had a dream," he said, and his voice was low but the room was so quiet that every sister there heard him as if he had been whispering in their ears. "I fear there may have been a prophecy in it. Something stirs in the hearts of the other kings and queens, I think. I fear. I fear what may come to us, what foul future may be visited on our people."

"We fear nothing so long as you lead us," she said, and her throat was tightening. Here was the part of him, she thought, that his sisters needed to see. This was the side of him that they would come to worship.

"Then do not fear. Let the fear be mine." He paused for a long time, a time that stretched out into minutes. She thought he had fallen asleep, and then, "Nothing will happen to you. Not to any of you. Not so long as I am here to stop it. Do you understand? I am your King, but I am among my sisters first, and no man has ever loved his sisters better than me. Nothing will take you away from me." A flare there, she felt something stirring in him, something that made his hand grow hot and twitch powerfully against her fingers, and then it was gone. "Yet I am afraid."

A light shuffling in the dark. She turned over to face him, rested one hand against his cheek, felt calmness flow through him. More rose from their places on the floor, reached out, lay their hands on him. They rested their palms on his arms, their fingertips against his back, gently grabbed him by his ankles. In the space of moments every woman in the room was touching him in silence, in awe, and something passed between all of them that drew tears from Nabooru's eyes.

After a long, long time, he fell asleep.


	3. Chapter 3

In the middle of the fortress they had built a pyre, and atop the pyre they had placed a robe the color of the sun. This they had done during the day, and Ganondorf had sat before the pyre, staring up at it, meditating on the trial that awaited him. Nabooru did not meditate; she tried her best to ignore the whole affair, to push the idea of it from her mind. This was difficult as she helped her sisters and cousins and aunts set up the seating and the drums that would accompany the ceremony, the whole tribe acting as ordered by the two witches who oversaw them in the years between the reign of their kings.

Night fell, and Ganondorf sat contemplating. The tribe gathered around him, whispering but never talking, all of them watching him. He was wearing the traditional white robes of a Gerudo prince, and if he did not complete his trial then he would wear them as a king as well. There had been kings who had chosen not to take the trial, Nabooru knew, and many of them had been good and just, but none of them ruled with the same authority as their forefathers and grandsons who claimed their new robes. Ganondorf would do nothing less; his people expected nothing less.

"Light the pyre," he said.

A sister – veiled in white, as tradition demanded – brought a lit torch to the pyre and threw it in. The wood had been treated with some potion by the witches, and the entire structure roared to life at once, throwing off light enough to turn night to day and so much heat that those in the front-most row had to shield their faces from the flames. Ganondorf, sitting next to the inferno, watched the fire and said nothing.

He rose to his feet, and at a word from Kotake the drums began to beat. It was the pounding of their communal heart as their son and nephew and brother looked up at the fire that separated him from his lordship. Nabooru could feel it resonating in her chest.

He raised his arms, and at a word from Koume the dancers leaped forward from the stands, dressed in ceremonial robes and veils that were only used once a century. They danced, not with the rhythm of the drums, but as a counterbalance, whirling and spinning, their feet slamming on the off-beat, their veils trailing behind them as they went round and round the pyre, their bodies throwing wild shadows on their sisters in the audience. They were the determination of the people, their hope vested in him.

He tossed aside his robe, and they began to sing, their voices raised in tribute to him, slamming their hands together on every second beat of the drums. The sound they made was louder and grander and more terrible, but he noticed not at all.

Nabooru slammed her hands and sang with the rest, and with the rest she looked at her friend, her _king_, standing in his small clothes before the pyre. She was at an angle where she could see his face, could see the knitting of his brow as he considered the fire, the contempt he had instead of hesitation. She saw him then, where she had been able to ignore him before, and it was true of every sister there: born only of woman, Ganondorf was the apotheosis of men, incredibly tall, broad of shoulder, thick-muscled and lean and sinuous and strong, strong beyond reason. He had stopped being a boy in truth some time ago, but now they saw him as he was, apart from them, and this song, the pounding of the drums and the whirling of the veils and the beating of their hands and the lifting of their voices, was their welcoming to their king and their farewell to the boy he had been.

They sang and Ganondorf stepped onto the pyre. Some of the sisters screamed; it was not part of the ceremony but it was always true, had always happened throughout history, and the pounding of drums and feet and hands grew more furious to match.

His body was obscured by the flames so that he became a shadow as he climbed, his arms reaching out to match the beat, pulling himself up inch by inch on the flaming wood. Some of it gave way at his touch and he nearly slid and fell, but he kept ascending, and the song rose as he did.

What did it mean, that he was doing this? She remembered the boy that he had been, of her first awareness of him as a man, of the first time he had looked at her with eyes that did not see her as a sister anymore. Their lives had been spent together, growing closer even as they became more different: the first time he had held her hand for a reason other than comfort, the first time she had felt something warm and hungry in herself in response to his touch on her face. Was that the man who was braving the flames, now? Was he being burned away? Had he ever been there as she understood him, or was what they shared just a stopgap on his way to what he was becoming now?

None of her sisters would understand, because he had not looked at them in that way. Kotake and Koume could not understand; they had forgotten such things. Ganondorf himself might understand, but she had never approached him with her fears and her questions, too afraid to be an affront to his strength and his surety. He was a storm, full of love and hatred. Which side was feeding on the strength of his people?

The drummers fell to their task with all the strength in their arms, beating out the rhythm of hearts set to burst, and the dancers became whirlwinds of color and shadow, and the song rose to a scream, and Ganondorf reached the top of the pyre.

He stood, a shadow in the fury of the flames, huge and dark and beautiful.

He reached down and lifted robes that had been the color of the sun, which the fire had turned blacker than night. He set them on his shoulders, fastened them as the flames roared and the song roared and the dancers were tongues of fire.

He lifted his hand, fingers splayed, and there was silence, and the drummers and dancers stopped. He closed his hand into a fist, and there was a flash of purple light, and the fire winked out as if swallowed by the night.

No one dared to breathe as he descended, his robes trailing behind him, the symbol of the king of Gerudos grinning in orange on his back. This was not a struggle, now; he barely made a sound as he stepped over charcoal and ruin.

Then he was on the ground, and their eyes adjusted to the dark, and he looked around at all of them, his face calm and impassive and imperial. Regal. Godlike. This was it, the moment that would decide everything, after the victory and the descent. He had become a god to them; he had become a god to _her_. What would he do with it?

And then he smiled, and raised his arms wide, and there went up a cheer. They rose from their seats and rushed him, pressing in from all sides, the drummers and the dancers and the singers and her, each vying to touch him, to congratulate him, to share their adulation with him. They pressed him away from the pyre, which was now cold as if it had never been aflame in the first place, and he laughed as his sisters said goodbye to the boy he had been, pinching his arms and his neck, stealing kisses on his cheeks, embracing him before being pulled off so that the next sister might get their chance to touch him.

She hung back in the crowd, watching, thinking. They loved him more than any other race loved their ruler; she had never been to the Goron's mountain caves or the halls of the Zora or the castles of the Hylians, but she knew it was true because it had to be. He was a god lifted up from among them, separate but always at one with them in spirit and in flesh. She saw that he loved them, too, and perhaps it was even in the same way; his smile was so gentle, and he touched the heads of every woman he could reach, the traditional blessing of the Gerudo kings given out freely to every sister who came near him.

And yet something had been lost, she thought.

* * *

><p>The dancing continued, and drink flowed, and the Gerudo ate with rare abandon long into the night. Their king retired to his chambers, followed by hooting and crying and well-wishes, but his people celebrated him long after he was removed from their sight.<p>

He was in his own room now, the room he had slept in ever since he had become a man in body and thought, leaning against his window, watching his sisters in their rapture. There was no light in his room and many fires where they danced and sang and drank, so they would not see him watching them. Nabooru did, though, sitting on one of his chairs, watching his back. The set of his shoulders was tense, and his head rose and he looked at nothing for a time, gazing out at the horizon. She did not speak yet; the older he got, the more reticent she was to interrupt him.

A long time passed where the only sound in the room was the distant revelry. Then, "They are very happy."

She smiled in spite of herself. "You have given them reason to be, my king."

He flinched at the title, silent for several more moments, and she realized she had hurt him without meaning to. He did not betray it in his voice, though. He never had. "Do you see how they feast tonight?"

"It has been carefully rationed," she said, anticipating his worry. "None of us will go hungry in the time to come. We can enjoy this evening of plenty."

It had been a long time since Ganondorf genuinely surprised her, but what he said next did. "I would have them eat thus every day."

She smiled. "You would have your sisters fat."

"Yes," he said, and he was being perfectly earnest, nodding as he watched the festival continue. "Fat, and happy, and able to have all the daughters they wish without fear of how to feed them." She got to her feet, walking to him as he continued. "I would have them drink milk every day, and walk on soft grasses with bare feet, and see water as often as they now see sand."

She wound her arms around his waist. "You would give your people paradise."

His body tensed, becoming stone in her arms. "_Other_ peoples have attained it already." A heat rose up in him, shaking his limbs, and she could hear the sound of his teeth crushing against one another.

She tightened her grip on him, as if trying to embrace a mountain, and pressed her body against him, laying her head against his back. "Please don't. Please. _Ganondorf_."

He stopped, the shaking fading down to nothing and his limbs relaxing, and she let go of him as he turned to look at her. His expression was soft, then. She could not place exactly what he was feeling, which always scared her in her secret heart, but he was not angry, and that was enough.

"Of every Gerudo," he said quietly, "I think you have loved me best."

She said nothing. Could say nothing. Nodded, because she wanted it to be true as much as she believed it.

"I love our people," he said, and he put his hand on her shoulder, and it was a man's hand imparting a man's touch, electric on her skin. "I have been doing a great deal of reading, and a great deal of thinking. I know what I must do to give them what they deserve." His other hand he put on her waist.

"What," she swallowed as he pulled her body to his, and he was as strong as the world, "what will you do?"

Their eyes locked and his were burning and she felt herself burning as he looked at her. He leaned down and she kissed his jaw and nipped at the place where it met his neck, and the hand at her back moved down and she dug her fingers into his shoulders, using all of her strength because there was no give there, because he was invincible, because she was sand blown by the wind against his implacable face.

"Anything I have to," he said, and they lost themselves in each other for a time as the Gerudo danced below them.


	4. Chapter 4

Too few years the Gerudo had their king before they were reminded of the supremacy of another. It was a hot day in the middle of summer when an envoy from Hyrule Castle came to their valley, a man in silver armor and purple cloth astride a white horse bedecked very similarly. The old women tutted at the mistreatment of the horse, who was sweating nearly as much as the messenger astride it, but the young women were silent and shushed their aunts and looked at each other with trepidation. They knew that Ganondorf had sent a petition to the King of Hyrule, though they knew not what, but they also knew how unlikely the answer was to please him. Ganondorf was too young to have taken part in the civil war, but many of his elder sisters well remembered the blood shed, and the hatred that still floated in the air between all of the peoples.

The messenger looked about himself at every step through the camp; in any other place he might have been more confident, but in this place full of women in purple carrying halberds and women in white carrying bows, every eye turned to him like a curious beast who had wandered into the village, there was no room for the haughtiness of an emissary. Nabooru felt sorry for him. That is why, when he came to the entrance of the fortress, she met him there.

"Welcome, stranger," she said as he drew up his horse, which looked as exhausted as the old women were whispering.

He looked at her and inhaled and in a moment seemed to recover the pompous elevation of a man who was charged with speaking for his liege. "No stranger here, good woman. I am the emissary of His Majesty the King of Hyrule, known to all of His subjects, even so far-flung as the sisters of the desert."

She blinked at his curtness, then found herself amused, smirking as he lowered himself from his horse. "Indeed, then. Then allow me to extend a welcome on behalf of the King of Gerudo; I am his second-in-command, Nabooru. Will you be needing lodging?"

"Perhaps," he said, "but I am under order that my first business should be to speak to the Gerudo lord Ganondorf, and that I may take no rest until he has heard my message."

"I see," she said, and leaned in close him, and his eyes went wide at her proximity and she could smell the sweat of the road on him, mixed with the sweat of nerves bordering on fear. "And if we were to make you wait before seeing him, then? Would you stand here in the sun on the hem of the desert's skirts, roasting like a piece of meat until you were ready to be served to our king at his leisure?"

Indignation flashed over his face, but fear mastered him, and then duty, and he said, "If that is what is required of me, lady."

She smiled. "It is good that it is not, then. Our King is in his chambers. Here, one of our attendants will take your horse; _he_, at least, will get the rest he so plainly needs."

"Thank you, lady," he said, and a girl took the reins from him, and he seemed very relieved and affectionate toward his horse. Nabooru decided she liked him better, then, and lead him through the fortress.

Past the mess halls and the sleeping chambers they went, and girls on kitchen duty peeked out of the kitchen to watch the two of them walk by. Further and further in they went, and the emissary, to his credit, did not show any further sign of the fear he must have been feeling.

"I must warn you," she said to him as they passed between two guards, entering a long hallway, "the the Gerudo do not have audience chambers as you Hylians do. Ganondorf will receive you in his own quarters." The emissary nodded and said nothing, which was good; she had very nearly expected him to ask a stupid question.

They came to Ganondorf's chambers in little more time; in truth she had taken a roundabout path, winding just enough to give word time to spread without arousing the emissary's suspicion that he was being lead in circles. Because of the time provided, Ganondorf was waiting for them, seated in his high-backed wooden chair. Kotake was to his left and Koume to his right, and the old women snapped to attention when Nabooru and the emissary entered. Armed guards closed the door behind them, and Nabooru couldn't help being surprised; Ganondorf did not need armed guards at all, and even if he did the two witches were worth an army. It must have been for appearance's sake, then.

But Ganondorf did not need that either: he was enormous in the black robes of his office, as tall sitting as the emissary was standing, and the Hylian was not a short man. The king exuded power and authority and grace like a cat in repose, though his eyes were wide open and attentive without being malicious.

"You have come bearing news, I trust," Ganondorf said. The emissary nodded and bowed at the waist, as deep as it was possible for his body to go - this was the greatest respect he could pay to another king, a step removed from the full bending of the knee that he would pay his own. It was setting the tone for the entire conversation, that bow.

"I do, O King of the Gerudo. I am here in the name of Marense Johansen Hyrule, the First of His name, Beloved of Hylia, Protector of the Fields, the Lake, and the Legacy of Her people, Hero of the second Battle of the Plains, Brother to the," and so it went for some time, outlining the Hylian king's lordships and victories in battle, and the many lands under his command, including those of the Gerudo. One upside to the outcome of the civil war, for the Hylians, was that their army had been victorious, and more than victorious: they had established supremacy, set down their borders around the most defensible lands in the kingdoms, and ensured that they controlled trade between all of the peoples of Hyrule. The Hylian king had ensured that though Ganondorf may have been king over the Gerudo, Marense Johansen Hyrule was king over _all_. So the emissary, in introducing himself, had a great deal to say.

Ganondorf waited in silence while the emissary finished, his face impassive, perfectly patient.

When he was done with the titles, the emissary cleared his throat once. "His Majesty sends His greetings, O King, to His brother in arms who shepherds His sisters of the desert, beautiful and beloved of the sand. He has instructed that I should relay His message, without addition or subtraction of a single word, and thus shall I relay it.

"Lord Ganondorf. I extend my greetings to you, my brother in heart and in friendship, and have an answer to your petition. In regards to the request that certain among the Gerudo should be allowed to make settlement on the fields of Hyrule, in an area between the boundaries of the lake not extending further than the Gerudo desert nor within a day's walk of Lon Lon Ranch," and Nabooru stared at Ganondorf with wide eyes and she heard the guards behind her gasp at the same time, though the old witches only nodded, they _knew_ and she hadn't known, "I am afraid that I must deny your petition."

Silence. None of the Gerudo gathered dare to breathe. Ganondorf, to his credit, did not react.

"It is with regret that I must rely on your understanding that though you and I are on excellent terms, my people still do not know yours well enough. Though I bear no doubt that your people might live peacefully by mine, my people do not have that same understanding, and the commingling of our peoples, outside of the occasional, may be inimical to both of ours. In time it may be that we can live together, but that time has not yet come."

"The war," Ganondorf said, and his voice cut into the emissary's speech like a knife, and every eye in the chamber turned to him, "was a _decade_ ago."

The emissary blinked, cleared his throat, and might have looked about for help except that he was sure to get none in this place. Left with nothing else, he continued. "I thank you for your understanding, and look forward to improving the relations between our people in the future. I remain your King and friend, Marense Johansen Hyrule."

Nabooru braced herself for the storm, but there was nothing. Ganondorf breathed out, long and loud, through his nostrils. This was the only outward sign of his feeling anything at all.

"That is the message," he said.

"As it was dictated to me, sire."

"So be it," Ganondorf said, and rose from his seat, so tall his head nearly scraped against the ceiling of the chamber. "I had thought that the friendship between our people would be pronounced enough to allow for cohabitation, but it is not so. Your people are the chosen of the gods, after all."

The emissary said nothing. He swallowed. Nabooru could not even breathe as her king walked toward the smaller man.

"Will you bear a message for me in return?"

"As you command it, sire."

"It is this. The rejection is accepted. One month after this messenger has left Gerudo Valley, I and a number of my people will pay visit to Hyrule Castle." He smiled, and no one in the room knew what it meant but Nabooru. "This will be the first step in the long process of building confidence between our people, and I look forward to the parts that all of us will play." He placed his hand on the messenger's shoulder, and it swallowed the man's pauldron. "That is all. Go and rest. Eat well tonight; dine with my people, as no Hylian has done in years. We will arrange for you entertainment as is known to your people, or you may experience our own. Let Nabooru know, and she will see to it that your needs are met."

"Yes, sire." The emissary said, and placed his fist against his heart and bowed. "I am humbled by the generosity and hospitality of the Gerudo, and will convey word of it everywhere I go."

"See that you do, good servant of your king. Guards, show him to the guest chambers and see that he is treated well in the mess hall. Stay with him, and see that he is shown any part of the fortress that he desires. Kotake, Koume, make arrangements that our guest be entertained; arrange for music and dancing, and whatever else he desires." He was smiling, still, and he let go of the Hylian's shoulder. "Be at ease now. You will ride again tomorrow, but tonight you will live very well."

The Hylian bowed again, with all the earnestness of before, and was lead from the chambers by the guards. Kotake and Koume exchanged glances, knowing glances, and shook their heads as they hobbled from the room, dragging their brooms behind them. Nabooru stayed, as she always stayed, and shut the door behind the witches. She turned to face her king, but he was not looking at her. He was walking back to his high-backed wooden chair.

"I tried," he said. "I knew what would happen, but I tried. Diplomacy has failed our people."

"For now," she said, but she knew that even if she were right then she was still courting disaster. "Only for now, my king. You have made real overtures of peace. In a few more years time-"

"_WE HAVE WAITED ENOUGH!_" He rounded on her, and even though ten paces separated them she shrank back from him, from the fire in his eyes and the drawing of his lips away from his teeth in a grimace like she had never seen. "Four hundred years since Kotake and Koume were girls, and centuries more have we spent in this wasteland! Do you think this the first overture of peace with the Hylians, or the first time we were rejected for no reason but fear? Do you think I'm the first king to seek this for his people? _Do you_?"

"Ganondorf," she said, and she felt apart from herself, her mind numb as she found herself against the wall even though he had made no move toward her, "you are scaring me."

Silence. She saw the fire in his eyes go out, the storm abating, and he looked at her and then down at himself.

"I am sorry. I have grown tired and frustrated. In a month's time this disappointment will have abated, and you will join me on my excursion to the Hyrulian Royal Castle." He looked at her again. In spite of its phrasing, it was a request. A plead.

"Of course, my lord," she said, because she could say nothing else, and her heart went out to him. That rage was born of love for their people, she believed. A small voice inside of her was asking if she believed it because she had to. She tried to ignore it. "Of course I will."

"Thank you," he said, and turned away from her again, resting one hand on his chair. "Leave me now, and I will join you and the emissary later. See that all goes well until I come out."

"Yes, Ganondorf," she said. She waited for him to say more, to say that she had nothing to fear from him, that the burden of fear was on him alone, but he said nothing, and in the silence she took her leave.

As she walked out she glanced back once more, and she saw the wooden frame of his chair splintering between his fingers.


	5. Chapter 5

In the intervening month Nabooru barely saw Ganondorf at all, and the same was true of everyone else. Ganondorf stayed in the library, hidden among dusty books, and only the witches Twinrova were allowed to attend to him there. What he was looking for could only be guessed at, but he must have found it: when he came out of the library three days before the journey to Hyrule Castle he seemed much more at ease, and when out among his sisters he was seen to laugh and joke more often than he had in years. It was good for the people, to see their king happy so.

When the day came to leave he brought with him Nabooru and eight armed guards. Twinrova had objected, insisting that he triple the size of his guard or else allow them to accompany him, but he denied them and left them to guard the Gerudo while he was away. It was the first time they had ever openly opposed one of his decisions in public, and it was the first time he had had to reject their recommendations, but it went without incident, and he seemed more amused at their frustration than anything else. The party mounted, each on their own horses, and set out toward Hyrule Field.

In just over an hour they had passed beyond the limits of the Valley and into the lusher fields of the Hylians. Ganondorf set the pace as they rode, his enormous horse's long legs eating up the miles at a rate that Nabooru and their guards had to seriously push to keep up with. There was an air of eagerness about him that gave her pause, but she was not ready to examine her own discomfort just yet. There were things she was not allowing herself to suspect, perhaps, but the end result was simply that she was happy to see him act with energy again.

They had passed Lon Lon Ranch over an hour before the rise of the moon forced them to stop and make their camp. They built a pair of fires and tethered their horses in the middle of the road; bandits were not a concern in Hyrule Field at night, but the Stalchildren, the clattering bones of long-dead things, were. It was generally accepted that they would not rise if one stayed on the road, and Ganondorf seemed confident that this was true, but Nabooru had her doubts. Six hares, shot on the road for fresh meat, were set on spits, and she wondered if their bones might become one with the Stal in time.

Two fires were made; Nabooru and the guards sat at one and Ganondorf sat at the other, apart from them, reading documents that he had been carrying in his pack. She watched him for only a minute, and after that her primary concern was in talking to her sisters, only one of whom was standing guard. She did not know any of these women, and wondered if Ganondorf had picked them without knowing that.

"I've never been to Hyrule Castle Town," the youngest said. "Is it as busy there as people say?"

"We'll only be passing through on the way to the castle," Nabooru said.

"Yeah," said the guard on watch, "so you'll only have time to look, girl, not to touch. It's as busy as you hear: the Hylians are more numerous than you would believe. There are thousands of them in that one town alone, maybe more than all of the Gerudo."

"Oh," the youngest said. "Well, I hope we get some time to look around, still. This is my first time out of the valley."

"Looking to pop some poor Hylian boy's cherry?" said the watch, and the other guards laughed, and Nabooru laughed too; the youngest looked so embarrassed that she might have burst into flames and surprised no one.

"I was just wondering if they were fair to look at," the youngest said, barely loud enough to hear, and all of them laughed again. "I had heard they were, and I was out hunting when the emissary paid visit, is all."

"Oh, they're fair enough," Nabooru said. "Their skin is the color of parchment, or even paler. You will wonder if they have ever seen the Sun."

"Their ears," said the watch woman, "are sharp and pointed like arrowheads. They claim it lets them hear the gods, but _I _think it's just the wind whistling there. 'My, sure is gusty today. By the way, the gods say you look _terrible_.'" This last was said in a deep, deep bass that could only have been an imitation of Ganondorf, and for a second the guards there gathered were so stunned by the audacity of it that they could not react – but then that fell away, and they laughed until they were nearly sick from it.

Ganondorf had left his robes of office back at the fortress, as was customary for when Gerudo kings acted as dignitaries to other lands. His armor was unlike the battle garb of any other Gerudo, heavy and hard so that only he could move comfortably in it. The sound he made when moving in it was very distinctive when he wanted it to be, his footsteps echoing louder than the crackle of the fire or the laughter of his sisters. Nabooru was the first to hear it, and she did not look up to see him approaching.

"Sssshh!" she said, and all the guards were quiet and listened and a few looked at Ganondorf as he sat by the fire between two of them. Had he heard? Would he be offended?

Six hares they had caught that evening, enough to feed the entire guard, and the smell of them on the spit was very appetizing. Ganondorf must have agreed, because he reached into the fire – unmindful of the heat – and grabbed the largest of them with his bare hands, pulling it off of the spit. That small action, the reminder that he did not feel fire or pain in the same way that they did, was enough to put them into a minor state of awe. He brought the hare to his mouth and bit off a piece of its thigh, chewing for a moment.

"Needs spice," he said, and he grinned at them, "but it's done enough. Eat now. The Hylians say that the first cucco's crow announces that the Stalchildren will rise no more, but lacking any of those we will break camp at the first direct light of the Sun."

"Yes, lord," a few said, and all of them, those at rest and the guard on watch and Nabooru, split the rest of the hares among them and ate in silence.

Ganondorf did not have to sit apart from his sisters; they would have accepted him around their fire easily enough, and even told jokes in front of him that were no less bawdy than they would have told in private. By sitting away from them Ganondorf had set himself apart, Nabooru thought; and now, sitting there at the fire with them, he was an extra presence, not quite an intruder but still a force to be very, very wary of. He had most likely done this on purpose, to preserve the mystique and power of his office. It was a peculiar thought, because it was not so long ago that he would never have done such a thing.

Bones crunched as the king broke them in his hands, sucking the marrow from them and throwing them back into the fire. He ate more quickly than his sisters, who were still picking the meat from the legs, but this was one case where he was actually holding back for appearances: Nabooru had seen him eat roasted cucco without pausing to pick at all, crunching bone and sinew between his teeth as if it were the most normal way to take a repast. If he wanted to clean up there would be nothing left, but it was an unnerving sight and he knew it to be so. Odd, the things he would project to his sisters and the things he would try to hide.

He threw the last of the bones of his hare into the fire, watched the guards eat for a moment, and made eye contact with Nabooru. It was a fleeting thing, lasting only for a couple of moments, but she knew the meaning: he would speak to her, and soon. Just not yet. First, he would address all of them.

"We will be at Hyrule Castle for three or four days," he said, "depending on the particulars of the Hylian king's hospitality. Assume three. As such, you will all take rotating leave during the days – three on the first day, three on the second, and so on. Spend your time as you wish, taking in the sights as you will, before reporting back to the castle at sundown. I can arrange for you to have an escort if you fear getting lost," and here he grinned huge and wide and earnestly, an infectious kind of smile that made one grin in return even if it was not proper, "or I can forbid them if you fear the sights being _seen_." They did not laugh as loudly as before, but they did laugh, and they meant it, and Nabooru supposed that would be enough: in spite of being apart from them, he was still one of them, and this would be a new experience for him too, though not in the same ways.

"I will take my rest now," he said, "and each of you is to sleep when you are done eating. Nabooru, you will take the first watch, and designate whoever will relieve you."

"Yes, lord Ganondorf," she said, and went back to eating. He rose and walked away from them, his cape turning his silhouette huge and foreboding as he strode back to his own fire and lay beside it. The rest of the meal passed in silence, each sister wary of awakening the king, and then they lay down to sleep. Nabooru fastened her swords to her hips and began her patrol.

She had expected that he would speak to her immediately, but he did not. An hour passed in silence as Ganondorf lay by his fire and the rest of the guards lay by theirs, her circuit of the camp taking her past him many times, and for a moment she thought he had actually fallen asleep and would not speak to her.

Then she walked past him for something like the twentieth time, and looked down, and his eyes were open and the light of the fire reflected in them. He raised one hand and she stopped.

"I will be leaving all of you for a time," he said, sitting up. She said nothing. "I should be back by morning. If I am not, all of you are to continue without me, and wait for me at the gates to Hyrule Castle Town; I will meet you there." She nodded in answer, and he stood and looked down at her. His expression was very hard to read now, his feelings becoming a secret from her, and something inside of her ached – but she did not show it. Let that be her own secret. "Do you have any questions for me?"

"No, Ganondorf," she said. "It is not my place to ask more of my king than he would tell me on his own."

As little as a year ago he would have frowned and said that she was his most trusted adviser and most beloved of his sisters, and that it was her place to make sure that he behaved as he should, without fail. He did not do so now; he only nodded. It should not have, but that nod left a hole in her chest.

"I have left the contents of my saddlebag with your horse. Guard them carefully, and let no one see them. I will retrieve them when I return."

"Yes, my lord. Ride swiftly, and return to us safely."

"I am only a servant of the people," he said, and strode away from the fire, into the darkness. She watched the place where he had been even after he passed into shadows, and listened as the moments stretched out – and then the thundering hoof beats of his horse echoed in the dark and receded into the distance. Then he was gone.

The gap left by his presence was enormous, and the camp seemed very quiet. She continued her patrol, wondering when she should rouse her replacement, wondering what she would tell the other guards if Ganondorf failed to return by morning. She wanted desperately to ask him questions, but wanted more for answers to be offered. A stupid thought. He was more a king and less a boy every day, and would reflect his station more as he grew into the office. She would not expect that kind of camaraderie and friendship from the witches Twinrova, and they were not nearly so high as he; but she thought of him still as the young man that had learned how to use a sword with her, who had stood on the edge of the Hylian planes and argued with her for hours about philosophy because politics had been so far beyond them. She missed him as he had been. She wondered if the love she felt was for a person that was no longer there.

No. No, that was a lie too, just something she said to make herself more comfortable. Who he was now had always been inside of him, growing sharper and more defined. She just saw that more clearly now. That she loved him was true enough – they all did, though hers was different. She wondered if that would change in the wake of who he was now, or perhaps need to be set aside.

She passed by the horses as they slept, and a thought occurred to her. She tried to suppress it and found that she could not, in spite of how much it made her afraid.

She went to her horse, cooed to it and stroked its flank as it woke, and stared at her saddlebag for a very long time. She thought and thought about what she would do, then.

Nabooru opened the bag, and at the very top of it was a bundle of papers – not parchment but _paper_ – tied together with twine. These she lifted out, and shut the bag, and brought the papers over to the fire so that she could see them. She unfastened the twine, draping it between her fingers, and looked through the papers. For a time she did not understand what she was seeing.

The script was uniform and small and neat, written in Ganondorf's hand, but it was not in any language she understood. She had seen it before, in her studies: old Gerudo text, perhaps? Perhaps even older. In the margins he had scribbled notes in a clear and modern Hyrulian script, notes that sometimes repeated themselves under different variations with one in particular circled. Copied from an older scroll, then, for him to translate. There was precious little she might be able to glean from these. Still, she flipped through them, looking at each notation carefully, finding no particular meaning in "stone of fire" or "time's song" or any of the other myriad pieces which Ganondorf had found so important. She would rearrange them, and tie them, and place them back in her saddlebag where they had been before.

Then, on the last page, she saw something that caught her eye. A passage in modern Hyrulian framed a diagram for a symbol she recognized as being one of the crests of the Hylian royal family. A triangle, upright, with a black triangle place upside down within it – or three triangles, with the negative space colored in. Next to them Ganondorf had written in a hand that grew more energetic and excited with every word: "Whosoever holds the Golden Power shall have their heart's desire."

She felt a chill, then, and did not know why.


	6. Chapter 6

The Stalchildren were very real, Ganondorf found; Ganondorf would not be stopped by the remonstrations of the dead, the Stalchildren found.

Bones exploded into shards as he swept past them, bursts of purple magic erupting from inside of them and enormous hooves crushing them back into the earth, and every once in a great while Ganondorf would swipe at them with one of his twin Gerudo blades. When they fell they burned, and the ashes sank back into the earth, perhaps there to reform; Ganondorf did not know, and did not stay to find out. For the most part he was able to ignore them as they staggered clumsily after him and gave up the chase if he pulled too far ahead on his horse. The dead tried to stop him, but Ganondorf was of no mood to be stopped.

It was still early in the night, the air cool and bracing in his face, and he breathed deep the smell of the grasses. Small hills loomed in the night, peahats at rest, and he gave them a generous berth, not out of fear for himself but out of fear for his horse. They should not rise at night, he did not know if they could be roused at all without the sun, but he would not take that chance. Even those things, easily the most dangerous in Hyrule field, did not stop him, and he kept his horse at an open gallop, flanks heaving as they barreled down the field according to the map that Ganondorf had memorized.

The horse never tired, its eyes burned in the night, and what foam gathered at its lips was whipped away by the wind of its passage. His magic was strong in it, driving every muscle and strengthening every sinew, pushing it far beyond the endurance of any normal animal without so much as winding it. That his sisters had not guessed at its nature by now was a surprise to him, but for all that he was lucky.

They came to the edge of a tree line, and Ganondorf felt an enormous pressure begin to exert itself. What it was, exactly, was not immediately apparent, but the pressure became more powerful the closer he came to the trees. After a certain point his horse shied away, whinnying, and it only calmed at the touch of his hand on its neck.

"So be it," he said. "You stay here. If any Stalchildren should find you, crush them. Be ready for my return." The horse snorted, stamped with its forehoof, and he dismounted. Almost immediately it dashed away, and the distant clatter of bones grew only a little closer before he heard a great crash, of bones shattering and steel striking stone – and then again, and again, and again, and his horse neighing. It would be fine for his return, then. He turned back to the woods.

This force pushing back at him was vast and ancient, as old as the forest itself, and was probably the sole reason that the Hylians had yet to try to settle in the woods. Most men and women would not realize they were being driven away, and would give the woods a very wide berth almost by instinct – thus had the Kokiri Forest been spared in the civil war a decade ago, when so much else had been lost and burned. But Ganondorf was not most people, and he could feel the power of the thing in the woods.

He pushed through its influence, into the trees, and was hit with a wave of force that nearly sent him to his knees. He grit his teeth and looked up – there, in a stone wall, was the hollowed out trunk of a tree laid into the rock like a tunnel. The guardian spirit of these woods was exerting every ounce of its power to keep him away from that tunnel.

He grinned, because it would not be enough.

He lifted his hand, calling upon his power, and tendrils of purple light danced around his fingertips, snaking into the air before him, twisting and growing as they extended. His magic met the invisible force in the air, and there was the space of a heartbeat where the pressure exerted on him became a physical thing that pounded at his temples and pushed at the edges of his cloak – and then it was gone, as if it had never been there in the first place. The air was only normal air, and the moon was bright, and Ganondorf walked into the Kokiri Forest.

Ganondorf was of single purpose of mind, but he was also curious by his very nature, so although he did not slow in his walk he still looked around as he passed through the tunnel and over a crude wooden bridge which hung over a drop so short he probably could have pulled himself up from its floor. These woods were thick and dark and green, so green that it was only in that moment that it occurred to him that he now knew what "verdant" meant, and they were full of life. Not just insect life and plant life, though there was much of that; past that, between the leaves and in the air and in shafts of moonlight danced points of light, twirling in patterns so regular that they could only have been alive. The fairies of the Kokiri Forest, then. They looked like the greater cousins of fireflies, like the stars had come down from the sky to dance in this place. He passed them by, and did not see as the fairies watched him go.

He passed through another tunnel and emerged into a clearing, and here he stopped long enough to see: the stumps of enormous trees had been carved into crude houses, marked with brightly colored paint in different patterns to differentiate each from the others. Lights – fairies – danced between the doorways, and beaten dirt paths lead from each trunk to the others. This, then, was the Kokiri Village, where the children of the forest lived out their lives of eternal youth under the shade of their protecting spirit. Only a moment did he look at this and wonder, only a moment spent thinking of the inhabitants of that place and what it would have been like to speak with them: then he walked again, a shadow passing through their home.

He walked to the rear of the village, passing several houses on the way, and then he heard something that caught his attention, and stopped, and looked. There was a house unlike the others, actually built from wood on top of a tree rather than carved directly into a trunk, with a narrow wooden ladder leading from its edge down to the ground. From inside that house he heard the sound of a child groaning in terror, not the active terror of impending danger but the throes of _nightmare_. He knew well enough that fear. He wondered what the child was dreaming, and on he went.

At the rear of the village he found an opening in the rock wall that surrounded it, the beginning of a wide path, a hall of stone with no roof and walls draped with ivy. Down this path he walked, and then he felt the pressure of the guardian spirit again. This time it was not an attempt to drive him away – too late for that – but rather an exploratory thing, an attempt to get some measure of him. Let it try. He would take the measure of its face.

He emerged from the stone pathway into a clearing much larger than the last, and what he saw there was enough to put him in awe, however temporary: a single tree, larger than the entirety of the Kokiri Village, stretching a hundred paces into the sky, its trunk so large it would have taken a fair deal of time to walk around and its canopy so wide that in the middle of the day it would throw protective shade down on the village in its entirety. More than this, the ancient tree had a face, and that face was turned now to him as he emerged from the shadow of the path.

"Man of the outside world," the tree said, its voice vast and slow and soft, almost like the wind, "what is thy name?"

"I am Ganondorf, King of the Gerudo in the desert far from here." The tree looked at him, and he stepped forward into the clearing, the moon shining down directly on him through an opening in the canopy. "I have come seeking an audience, great spirit."

"Thy designs are clear," the tree said, and whether it was weary or fearful it was impossible to tell, "but I would hear thy words from thy mouth. I am the Great Deku Tree, guardian of these woods, father to the Kokiri whose home upon which thou trespass. What is the purpose of the audience that thou seekest?"

Ganondorf grinned. "A trifle for you, Great Deku Tree. Just a bauble, the smallest of jewels, which can be parted with at no loss to you."

The tree's branches shook with a sound like hundreds of bells ringing, and its enormous, ponderous face contracted in a furrowing of its brows.

"The Spiritual Stone of the Forest," it said, "is not to be given lightly to such as thee. Thou seek not the stone for its own value; alone, there is none in it. Verily, only one purpose must guide thee to seek the stone."

"The Triforce," Ganondorf said, and he felt something then, a shifting in the air, as the words passed his lips for the very first time. "The golden power of the gods."

"Thou seek that to which no mortal may lay claim; thy goal is locked away, and thou seek now the keys to free it. I wonder what desire drives thee, man of the desert, and what is thy desire that the golden power may grant?"

"That does not concern you," Ganondorf said.

"My concern is thine, so long as thou seekest the spiritual stone."

He inhaled through his nose, and breathed out again: his patience was already wearing thin with this old guardian, this forest god, but if an answer would get him the stone then that was all there needed to be. "I seek the power to grant my people what should be theirs in the first place, and to give them all the blessings that the gods saw fit to give the other races."

The silence as the Deku Tree considered this stretched on almost forever. He felt the weight of its thoughts in the shifting of its face and the vastness of its voice, but something in that infuriated him, made him wish for a torch. It was a very long time before it spoke again.

"It is said," said the tree, "that the Triforce will grant the truest wish of the heart of its wielder. Thy stated goal is made plain, and such doth thou promise to thine; but I wonder, what of thy heart? If it spoke for thee, for what would it wish?"

Silence, deeper and more terrible than before.

Much could be said of Ganondorf, of his restless dreams and the nobility of his ambitions and the deep, burning hatred, which he nursed in his secret heart and that burned more brightly than any of his sisters would ever possibly know. None of his sisters knew him, but he knew himself very well, and would not lie to himself when his eyes were turned inward. Thus were they now as he looked within, and pulled at the secret places in his heart, unfurling the dreams and desires of a boy and watching them blossom and grow as the ambition and drive of a man. The quest for the Triforce was, firstly, a quest of the self, of awareness and truth, and to deny oneself at all was to deny the golden power, the omnipotence, which might be granted to one. He thought of the boy looking out upon the green grasses of Hyrule, of the smell of the river that ran far below Gerudo Valley's deepest chasm, of his sisters toiling in the Sun and subsisting on so much less than any other race, of the Hylian king to whom he paid fealty, of the distant gods who had decreed that thus it was and must be and would be forever, of the hatred that burned in his heart, the inferno that had swallowed up his brain since before he had learned to talk and for which there might only ever be one answer so enormous as to quell it. He was not afraid, then: knowing what he knew now, he would never be afraid again.

"My heart and I are as one," he said. "I would have the world." He held out his hand, palm up, and beckoned with his fingers. "Give to me the Spiritual Stone of the Forest and I will leave this place and you will hear from me no longer. Be at peace, with all of your children, but _give me the stone_."

"Thou speakest true, and clear, and cannot feel the world shudder in terror of thee."

"Shudder it should, then. Give me the stone."

"I cannot." Ganondorf's wrath must have shown on his face, for the boughs of the tree shook again. "Thy heart is laid bare between us, Ganondorf, and know thou this: the golden power of the Triforce can never pass into thy hands, for thou art more terrible than any of its previous masters, or any of those who desired it in their hearts. I cannot give thee the stone, even at the cost of my life, for I am nothing weighed against the world."

"That is true," Ganondorf said. "You are not." He inhaled between his teeth, and power crackled over his body as he summoned up his magic, all of the old forms which even the witches Twinrova had been too fearful to study, and the air around him spit and sparked with the heat of the force he wielded.

He thrust his hands forward and screamed his fury and his hate, and that power surged from him like the fingers of a storm, clouds of black lightning passing over the Deku Tree's face, swirling into its eyes, its nose, its mouth. Dread purple light shown from within it, and there was a sound like the splitting of wood which grew louder and louder – and then sank, suddenly, into the pit of the earth, beneath the tree's trunk.

"What," the Deku's tree's voice was pained, though it could not show this in its face, "what hath thou wrought?"

"There is a creature in your roots," Ganondorf said, lowering his arms, looking up at the tree, and smiling. "A parasite the likes of which you trees may deal with a million times over the course of your long life, but no longer so ordinary. I have empowered it, and all of its children and all of its cousins, with my magic. They will eat at your roots, at the very source of your power, and their life will spread through you like a disease."

The Deku Tree said nothing, only watching him.

"You have two choices, guardian of the forest, _god_ of these woods. Should you change your mind and decide that you wish to give me the spiritual stone, send one of your fairies with word and I will come and remove this curse from you, sparing you and all life in this forest. If you do not, then the curse will eat at you from root to canopy, and you will die, and I will return to take the stone from your corpse. Think quickly, because you don't have long."

Then he turned, and was gone from that place.

* * *

><p>If there was anything that Darunia hated more than the particular pressures of being the big boss of the Gorons (and there were many) it was having to do all of the record-keeping. Goron traditions were primarily oral, rather than written, but economic compatibility with neighboring kingdoms necessitated the incorporation of the written word and a hundred thousand other things that he hadn't had to worry about before the different nations were united in the wake of the civil war.<p>

So it was not enough that the bomb flower crop had been poor that year, and that rising prices would mean that only the Hylian military would be able to afford them. No, in addition to what would amount to a considerable economic loss for his people, he also had to keep track of that stuff. Every field and every garden was tallied and counted, with those tallies placed in columns next to last year's yield and the yield that had been predicted for this year – both numbers so much higher than the actual crop that it made his head hurt to look at them.

He set down his pen and his tablet, leaned his back against his stone chair, and ran his enormous fingers through his wild gray hair. Like all Gorons he was built like a boulder rather than the more human shapes of the other races: his torso was spherical, his head wide and squat, his back covered in stony growths, his legs stubby and his arms long. But whereas other Gorons tended to have thin arms, his were huge and well-developed, his muscles grinding together like rocks beneath the brown coarseness of his skin. Where his brothers and sisters all shaved their heads he had allowed his own hair to grow free and wild, so it complimented the appearance of physical largeness. He had not become Big Brother of the Gorons through paperwork. He had not become Big Brother of the Gorons _for_ paperwork.

He was thinking of taking a break when there was an enormous clatter outside of his chamber.

"Big brother! Big brooootheeeeer!" He winced as the younger Goron, plump and thin-armed and shaved of head, rolled into the room, crashed into a wall, and slowly sat up. "Big brother! There you are! You have to come quickly!" He had begun hopping from foot to foot and waving his arms.

He closed his eyes for the brief moment it took to remember the young Goron's name. "Barmand," he said, "there is nothing that can justify being this excited right now. Calm down and tell me what is the matter."

Barmand stopped mid-jump, blinked, and lowered his arms. He breathed once, and turned his huge black eyes to Darunia's. He was absolutely serious, or as much as it was possible for someone so young to be. "There are monsters in Dodongo's Cavern."

"Monsters."

"Yes, big brother. There are roars coming from inside the quarry, as if the dodongo themselves are alive!"

"Dodongo," Darunia said, walking toward the door so that Barmand followed him, "have been extinct for generations. There is nothing left of them but their petrifying bodies."

"Only the sounds are real, big brother, and they started when that man appeared. I think he is a wizard."

That made Darunia stop, gears turning slowly in his head. "A man. A _wizard_. What does he look like? What crest does he wear?"

"I don't recognize his crest, but he looks like... he looks like the Gerudo do, only a man."

He looked at Barmand. "A Gerudo. Gerudo _man_."

"Yes, big brother."

He didn't say another word; Darunia tucked in his arms and rolled with all the speed he could muster, and Barmand followed him. Up the spiraling paths of Goron City they went, flying up staircases and rounding corners with such speed that Gorons of all ages had to scramble to get out of their way, and Barmand could only barely keep up. Darunia raced out of the city, taking a hard right across a desiccated bomb flower garden which had yielded only a single bud, and ramped off of the fencing there, breaking it, leaving a hole through which someone might easily jump in the future – but that was not his concern now. He fell and fell, unmindful of the height, and when he hit the ground it was with an enormous crash. Barmand hit the ground behind him only seconds later.

He rose, looking immediately to Dodongo's Cavern, and what he saw there froze his voice in his throat.

They were _alive_, far back in the reaches of the cave, the beasts whose bodies made up the quarry from which his people mined nearly all of their food. He could hear them roaring, see spouts of flame flare to life in the distance, and thought he saw green bodies shifting against the background of shadows. Torches, he thought. They would need torches, and a raiding party. Every able-bodied Goron in the city would need to be gathered at once, with all the bombs that had managed to sprout. Even that might not be enough to kill the things.

It was only after this thought had set in, and in his mind he found himself predicting the toll of bodies piled high in the killing of the monsters, that he saw the man standing beside the cave: tall and dark, his nose long and hooked, as thickly muscular as Darunia himself in spite of being so much longer of limb. A Gerudo man, a _king_, and the air around him crackled and stank with the effects of his magic.

"You there!" Darunia said. "Identify yourself, stranger, or you will be-"

The man lifted his hands, still facing the cavern, and the ground beneath Darunia's feet shook. He kept his footing but heard Barmand fall over behind him, and he watched in silent terror as the Gerudo worked his power. He had never seen magic worked before, and would not have learned of it this way by choice.

The rock cropping over the Gerudo's head shifted and broke away from the mountain proper, but instead of falling it floated, hanging in the air for long seconds. Only with another motion of the wizard's hands did the boulder come down, touching the ground in front of the desert man's feet – and then he thrust his hands forward with a roar, and the boulder slammed into the entrance of the cavern, breaking up the stone surrounding it, and after a moment it was wedged more tightly than a cork in a bottle. The sound was deafening, and the dust kicked up by the impact was blinding, but the wizard did not react to this at all; nor could Darunia allow himself to.

The Gerudo turned to face Darunia then, and he grinned, his eyes burning in the night like torches. "I am Ganondorf," said he. "I know you to be a proud people, and your leader proudest of all, so hear me: _give me the spiritual stone of fire_. When you do, I will remove this boulder and give you access to your quarry once more." He did not say that to refuse him would mean starvation, but he did not have to.

Darunia's hands shook as he balled them into fists; at that moment he could have very literally crushed stone between his fingers. Every thought in his brain, every fiber of every muscle in his body, was demanding that he attack the Gerudo, to break his bones like sticks and feed them into a fire, to pound him into the bedrock until there was nothing left of him. The screaming animal part of his brain, the young Goron who had fought his way to prominence in the era of the civil war, thought he would be able to. But the older Goron, the wiser one, the Big Brother that he had become, knew he did not stand a chance against this man and his dark magic.

So it was that when Ganondorf walked past him, and down the mountain trail, Darunia did not make a grab for him: he let him go, and did not watch him leave. It took all the will he could exert, especially knowing that other Gorons would see, but he did nothing, and moved not at all.

He stood there for a long time, until Ganondorf was definitely gone and then for a time after.

"Big brother," Barmand said, timid and a little fearful, "what will we do?" Another moment of silence. Then, "What will _you_ do?"

Darunia rounded on him, stared him in the eye, and Barmand took a step back. He was not angry at the kid, but if he didn't control himself he would vent that rage on anyone near him. The wizard had demanded the spiritual stone. Only one reason possible for that – a bad one, the worst one imaginable. This was enormous. Something he couldn't handle on his own. He would need help, and that thought infuriated him even more than the arrogance of the wizard himself.

"I will be in my room!" Darunia said, and stomped past Barmand and began his way up the trail. "I will take the spiritual stone with me. Send word to the king, and tell him what has happened here. I will speak to no one but a messenger of the royal family!"

The figures and record-keeping was gone from his mind, but if someone had pointed that out to him he would have put them through a wall.

* * *

><p>The King of the Zora sat off to one side of his throne, humming to himself, wondering where his daughter was off to. His attendants had been dismissed so that they might find her. It would not take long; she was probably tending to Lord Jabu Jabu even now, seeking to fill her mother's shoes as early as possible. He loved his daughter for that, in a way that was rare for a king to love a princess, with the heartfelt frankness normally reserved for commoners. He saw her mother in her, and wondered if that would become truer as she grew into a woman. Certainly he saw little enough of himself: he was huge and rotund, an echo of the fish from which legends said the Zora had been raised by the gods, where his daughter looked more like the common stock that his wife had come from, save for the royal carriage on her head.<p>

He wondered if King Ganondorf was meeting her even now. He had passed by only moments before to pay his respects to Lord Jabu Jabu, even carrying the customary offering of fresh fish (though King Zora did not recognize the breed, and he had thought himself familiar with everything that swam in the river or the seas). A quick and perfunctory visit, as he was on his way to pay fealty to the King of Hyrule, but there would be another visit on his reutrn trip, Ganondorf had said. That one, he had promised, would bear considerably more fruit.

He liked the Gerudo King, he decided; he was still young and brash, lacking the refinement that he would undoubtedly cultivate with age, but something in the Gerudo's youthful vigor resonated with him. He should like to talk to him quite a bit more.

King Zora shifted his enormous weight to very little effect. Not for the first time he wished he could walk more normally. He had not paid his homage to Jabu Jabu while standing under his own power in decades. He should have liked to be there now, to walk Ganondorf through the proper protocols, to properly introduce his daughter to a foreign dignitary. So much learning to be done, he thought, and so little time for them to do it.

He wondered how the meeting between the king and the guardian god of the Zoras was going. Very well, most likely.

* * *

><p>Nabooru never did rouse anyone to replace her on the watch. She should have, she knew; she would make a poor showing at the castle if they arrived today. Still, her nerves were shot, and she was not prepared to waken one of her sisters and explain why the king was gone. That would bring questions, both ones she didn't know the answer to and ones where she suspected answers that sent chills racing down her spine. She could not let them suspect as she did, or to guess at the answers suggested by the papers she had re-hidden so carefully in her saddlebags.<p>

The first glow of the Sun was beginning to warm the sky far to the east, and it was that particular hour before dawn where nocturnal insects grew quieter and diurnal animals had not awoken yet. The world felt very quiet, the silence bigger than what noise remained. The fire was long since dead, the night warm enough that they hadn't needed it, and she watched her sisters sleeping. She was at that particular stage of exhaustion where there is no clear border between the countries of sleep and wakefulness, and long moments passed where she felt nothing, blinked, and wondered if she had been asleep standing up. The Sun would rise soon, and then they would need to move. The thought made her feel even more tired, and angry.

Then she heard hoof beats in the distance, and exhaustion was blasted out of her mind like mist before the light of day.

She turned, running to the sound, leaving the camp behind, and the Sun's rays fell on the ground so that the Stalchildren did not rise. Her swords were in her hands, not because she thought about it but because it was her first instinct. The rider could be anyone, she had to be prepared for anyone, but at the same time she knew this was not true, that the sound of thunder and the increased pressure in the air could only be one person.

Then Ganondorf was before her, his horse rearing, his face shining with triumph. She had not seen him approach. She was losing time; was that the exhaustion or him?

"My lord," she said, sheathing both of her swords. She saluted, bowed to him, paid her respects as automatically and formally as his position demanded. It felt easy, with her thoughts seared clean by a long night spent walking. "Did you accomplish what you set out to do?"

"Yes," said he, and he laughed. "Yes, that and more. Come!" He extended his hand to her. "Ride with me. We will return to our sisters and set out for the castle at once. We will arrive late, but we arrive _today_."

She took his hand, and he lifted her up onto the saddle behind him as if she weighed nothing at all, his horse not even shifting under the extra load. He spurred the beast almost before she could get her arms around his waist, the horse nearly charging out from under her, and she clung to the king like a child might. She pressed her ear to his back and listened to the steady drum of his heart, which sounded massive and powerful even then.

"Ganondorf," she said, putting as much emphasis on his name as she could.

"Nabooru?" he said, looking over his shoulder at her.

"What did you do tonight?" The question never would have been asked if she had gotten any sleep, but now it did not seem so huge and impossible.

"Everything necessary," he said, and the look on his face was not like the one she expected, not like the one he had worn when he held her on the night of his ascent to the throne, not the look of a man whose only concern was the welfare of his people. There was something else there, a fire burning, and she felt the heat of it in his eyes as he looked at her. "Well. Not everything, I suppose. But we will remedy that soon."

The chill was back, and the Sun could not touch it.


	7. Chapter 7

The trip to the castle was uneventful, with the people in Hyrule Castle Town gawking and Ganondorf staring long and hard at the Temple of Time as they passed by it in the distance, and all of Nabooru's sisters keeping count of the castle guards during the approach. Little of that mattered, and it slid out of focus for her. She kept falling asleep in the saddle, in truth, but never would have admitted it, and her sisters did not seem to notice in any case. They handed off their horses to a porter, and Nabooru almost expected someone to ask for their weapons but no one did. They were swept quickly through the castle, lead by a herald who announced their arrival, and then they were in the throne room, the nerve center of power in Hyrule, and no degree of exhaustion could have made her miss a single detail in this place.

That the throne room was opulent went almost without saying, being constructed of blocks of white stone that must have needed constant cleaning to keep their sheen. Tapestries hung on the walls, each depicting various segments of Hylian legend (she took note of one that depicted the three creation goddesses, and beneath them what looked like a lesser goddess standing guard over the Hylians, but she did not know what this was meant to represent), and thick carpets covered the vast majority of the flooring, all crimson and inlaid with gold thread in patterns too intricate to see in detail while standing. Only when kneeling, as she and Ganondorf and the entire entourage were doing now, could one appreciate the craftsmanship.

At every entrance and at several places on the wall stood guards, the Hylian elite, tall and strong and wearing well-fitting armor polished to a mirror finish. Men and women, each of them looked hard and experienced, possibly a match for the blademistresses from the valley - though not, possibly, for herself or the women Ganondorf had picked for his guard. That thought was treason, but it was gone from her mind almost as soon as she had it.

At the head of the throne room were three figures: the King of Hyrule, his daughter the princess, and an absolutely towering woman who stood behind the princess's seat. Her attendant, most likely. The king was not a small man, his face wide and ruddy and his beard grown out according to the fashion of Hylian royalty, and the voluminous robes he wore did little to hide the warrior's physique beneath it. He had softened a fair deal since the time of the civil war, but Marense Johansen Hyrule had forged his country with a sword and he had the bearing of a warrior. His daughter the princess was another story: her eyes were huge and watchful, as brightly colored as the sky, and the small headdress she wore served to hide all but a few strands of hair the same color as the sun. Next to her father she almost looked like a flower, too delicate to stand on her own, and Nabooru got the impression that she would burn terribly in the light of day - which made the appearance of her attendant all the more striking. The woman was built almost like Ganondorf, arms constantly crossed, her entire body packed with tightly corded muscles that could have exploded with force at any moment. Of everyone in this room, Nabooru thought, the attendant was the only one who was really dangerous.

"Ganondorf!" said the the king, "it pleases me greatly that you have come here to greet me in person." He rose from his throne and walked down the steps toward his subjects.

"I can do no less," Ganondorf said, "and I have been remiss in not doing so sooner. I beg your pardon for my tardiness."

"Enough, enough," Marense said, and tapped Ganondorf on his shoulder. "Here, get up. Up with you." And Ganondorf rose, and the king stepped back. "Displays such as this are important, my friend, but without my court here gathered it is just artifice. You are _early_. My court will not convene for another two days, at which time you may pay your respects in the fullness you have prepared for."

"Your Grace," said Ganondorf, blinking, "I do not understand."

Marense closed his fingers around Ganondorf's forearm, and closed Ganondorf's fingers around his own. "In two days, bend the knee to me. Until then you are my guest, and my friend."

After a moment of confusion Ganondorf grinned, and all of his guards smiled, but Nabooru looked past the embrace to the empty throne, and the child in the smaller seat next to it. The princess's features were smooth, but she was a child and could not hide the fact that she was actively trying not to frown. Nabooru did not understand the child's reticence. She thought, perhaps, it was just a mistrust of a strange-looking people.

Later she would wish she had known better, that she had thought to ask the princess for herself.

* * *

><p>They arrived late in the day, when the sun was falling again, and so were asked to join the king for his repast. Ganondorf and Nabooru joined the king and princess at their private table, which was of course covered in far more food than anyone there could eat - perhaps Ganondorf could get through it, Nabooru thought, but he would never show his real appetite in front of <em>anyone<em>, least of all royal strangers.

"You honor me, Your Grace," Ganondorf said, "to share your meal with me."

"Enough of that, enough of that," the king said, "you are my _friend_, yes? You said as much in your missive to me, and I to you, so we will address each other as friends in private - assuming we are speaking in private?" he said, indicating Nabooru without pointing.

"Nabooru is the best of my advisors," Ganondorf said, "and will breathe no word of what is said here."

"Wonderful. Then she will not tell anyone that I am calling you Ganondorf, and that I want you to call me Marense. Eh?" And now he made eye contact with her, and she was struck by the look of him: he was really very handsome, as Hylian men went, and his eyes were an icy blue where his daughter's were warm.

"No, Your Grace," she said.

"Wonderful. You know, Ganondorf, it is very difficult to find a really good advisor." He picked up a roll of dark, dense bread, the sort that was very nutritious but that children did not like the taste of, and began to smear sweet-smelling jam on it. "I have a dozen men and women who fulfill the role that _one_ might have."

"Your concern and the scope of your rule are greater than mine," Ganondorf said, and tore a roasted cucco's leg from the body before biting into it.

"True enough. Still, I remember a time not so long ago when I did not need so many advisors or so many hangers-on, when one person could tell me what I really needed to hear and that would be all I needed. Nowadays, the closest I have to that is my daughter." The princess said nothing, clearly embarrassed, and kept nibbling at the food on her plate, eating carefully with a knife and fork where the two kings and Nabooru were eating with their hands.

"I do not believe we have been introduced, Your Grace," Nabooru said.

"Ah! So you have not. Well then, Ganondorf, Nabooru, this is my daughter, the crown princess Zelda." The princess inclined her head to both of them, and could not help smiling, and Nabooru thought that she looked an awful lot like the younger daughters of the tribe in that moment, gracious and wild all at once. A beautiful child, and her eyes were very warm. For some reason, though, the princess would not make eye contact with Ganondorf - she would not even look directly at him. "She is like many children in that she can see to the heart of matters that adult perspectives might only obfuscate, but she is also wise, like her mother was."

"I have heard," Ganondorf said, watching Zelda with a look that Nabooru could not place and the king did not notice, "that she also has dreams." He looked at the king, eyebrows raised in question. "_Prophetic_ dreams."

"That gossip," the king said, his mood darkening visibly, "I should have squashed the moment it got started. Nothing but trouble, and brings undue attention on a girl who's not ready for it."

"It is untrue?"

"I didn't say that," the king said, then sighed. "It is true enough that she has had prophetic dreams, and interprets them on her own. Tell me and our guests, my heart: how many times has your prophecy been wrong?"

Zelda looked back and forth between her father and Nabooru and for the barest second she looked at Ganondorf and then back down at her plate. The attendant was standing behind her, then. Had she been there before? She must have been. "They have not been wrong before, My Lord Father." Then she looked at him, her eyes wide and earnest. "But they were only ever small things! A horse getting their leg broken, or someone being wounded in a training exercise, or a storm-"

"Prophecy is prophecy, small or large," the king said, waving his hand, and took another bite of his bread. "And sometimes, smaller will give way to larger. Mark my words here, all three of you: Zelda will do great things for this land of ours."

"Of that," Ganondorf said, "there can be no doubt."

* * *

><p>They ate long and well and slept the same, with his entourage speaking to Ganondorf in private, one-by-one, before retiring. He thought Nabooru would speak to him, and it seemed that she would, but in the end she kept her own counsel.<p>

The Gerudo rose with the sun and Ganondorf sent three of his guards into Hyrule Castle Town to take their leave, as he had promised. The captain of the guard initially wanted to give them an escort, but recanted when Ganondorf suggested the townsfolk might think the guard were protecting the townspeople from the visitors, rather than the other way around. Ganondorf ate with Nabooru and the rest of their sisters, and was invited to join the king in his garden. Ganondorf went and brought Nabooru with him while the rest of his troop were given tours of the castle, particularly the training grounds where the royal guard practiced swordplay and archery and the like.

The garden itself was exquisite, filled with varying shades of green that flowed into each other like an artist's panting more than an example of nature. Nature controlled, then, and Ganondorf appreciated the idea behind it, even if he thought the flowers were gaudy and wasteful. The king and the princess sat in quiet contemplation of the garden, sometimes walking among its fragrant blossoms, always sitting on a bench in the shade of a tree when they took their rest. The garden was full of such benches, one of which Ganondorf and Nabooru sat on, near enough to the king and princess that they could speak comfortably. The princess's attendant, as ever, stood nearby.

After a time, Ganondorf looked over at the woman, and said to the king, "Your daughter's caretaker is an imposing woman. A bodyguard?"

"A nanny, really," the king said, and grinned at the woman, who did not react at all. He was still grinning when he looked back at the Gerudo. "Aye, a bodyguard, and caretaker, and nanny all at once - you have heard of the Sheikah? I can see on your face that you have. Many died in the civil war; she is among the last, a veteran of that conflict."

"I keep wondering if you have a bodyguard of your own, Marense, and if I do not have the eyes to see them."

The king laughed. "No. No, would that I did. Impa here is the only one of the Sheikah still trained in the arts necessary to protect the royal family, and my daughter's protection was requested specifically by my late wife. I have honored her wishes, and it has been to our benefit. I do not think I could handle being smothered so well as my daughter does." At that Impa did grin, and Zelda frowned, and the king laughed heartily.

A thought crossed Ganondorf's mind. "She must be a very good fighter, then."

Zelda cleared her throat, and every eye in the garden turned to her as she straightened her back, adjusted her wimple, and said with all the imperiousness she could muster: "There is no one in the kingdom who is stronger than Impa is."

Ganondorf grinned as he felt Nabooru tense beside him; whether that got her dander up or because she suspected what he was doing did not matter. "Interesting that you should say so. We Gerudo have a long and storied tradition of blademistresses who master the use of two swords to great effect. I was just wondering if your bodyguard could compare to our best."

"I am sure she could," Zelda said, and Impa was staring at Ganondorf now. "She could even show you, if you had any blademistresses with you."

"My king-" Nabooru said under her breath, but Ganondorf held up one hand and she was quiet.

"I do, or near enough," Ganondorf said. "My attendant, Nabooru, is not a true mistress in that she does not teach our younger sisters, but she is deft enough with a blade to be a match with almost anyone. Marense, will you indulge my martial curiosity?"

The king's smile was huge, pulling the corners of his beard high up, and his eyes beamed like a warrior who has just awoken again to old passions. "A good bit of sparring? That would be something to see, wouldn't it? I do not know if we have any training blades in the Gerudo style in the armory."

"Give me a pair of real ones," Ganondorf said, "and I will see to it that they are safe to use."

"Excellent," the king said, and sent one of his guards to retrieve a training blade for Impa and two scimitars for Nabooru. These were brought out quickly, and Ganondorf took the scimitars in his hands and ran his fingers along their edges. His magic flowed through the blades, and when he took his hands away they were blunted completely; one would have been hard-pressed to cut butter with them.

"Excellent magic, Ganondorf," Marense said, taking the scimitars and testing his thumb against their former edges. "I didn't know the traditions were so strong among your people." Ganondorf only nodded, trying to seem gracious, and the king turned to the Sheikah. "Well, Impa? What do you say?"

"I will fight for your amusement as you command, Your Grace." She said this to the king, but she was looking at Nabooru, and Ganondorf watched the way she was shifting her weight, like a cat who was about to pounce. She was a warrior too, a warrior blooded in battle, and there were certain habits it was always easy to push people into.

"And you, Nabooru?" he said to his attendant.

She did not answer; she got to her feet, and walked to the King of Hyrule, who gave her the blades with his own hands. She bowed low as she took them from him.

"Zelda," the king said, and the princess had been staring back and forth between Nabooru and Impa with a child's excitement but looked now to her father as if snapped out of a dream. "Will you be the judge of their contest? Can you say fairly who wins between them?"

Zelda started to nod, but instead looked at the two women again. "How does one judge?"

"Who wins in a fight is the easiest thing in the world," Ganondorf said, and he grinned when she looked at her feet rather than at him. "Whoever hits the other hardest and most often, she wins. Or, whoever knocks the other down so that they cannot get up, she wins. Can you decide based on those conditions?"

"Yes, my lord," she said, her voice small and shy.

"Good," Marense said, "see that you do." Two guards he set to stand by Zelda while she judged the contest, and Nabooru and Impa stepped into a clearing in the garden, pacing around each other before assuming the stances of their arts. After a moment Impa held up a hand, walked to a guard, and took his shield from him. She returned to her place, and though her expression did not change she bashed the hilt of her practice sword against her shield, and the sound was very loud.

Zelda loudly took a breath and held it, the king watched with a warrior's fascination, and even the guards were momentarily arrested by the two women circling each other. Ganondorf had to fight to keep from grinning.

"Go!" Zelda said.

Nabooru moved first, her whole body coiling before she leaped, and then she was a whirlwind of blades, a flashing spiral of steel that descended on Impa with blows falling too quick for most of the onlookers to see. Impa held her ground, intercepting blows so that they glanced off of her shield and turning one or two away with her sword, but her feet did not move.

Ganondorf got off of his bench, walked over to where the king was seated, and sat next to him. Both still watched the fight.

"Nabooru fights like a demon," Marense said.

"She does," Ganondorf said, "but you are about to see her fight much more frantically. Zelda's guardian is intercepting all of her strikes as if she knew where they were going to land beforehand, and it's obvious she could be doing much more than that."

"She is not fighting as she could," Marense said, waving his hand. "You will probably never see her really fight. I could tell her to, or even order her to under pain of death, but there are some forms of loyalty more sacred to the Sheikah than mere obedience, and she will only ever show her art in defense of the royal family. Right now she is only miming the bladework of one of my footsoldiers."

"Her mimicry is magnificent," Ganondorf said, because it was true.

Nabooru had both of her feet planted now, using both blades in alternating strokes so that every time Impa deflected one blow she would transfer the force to her other arm, every stroke landing more heavily than the last. The sound of the blades striking the shield was deafening. Then Impa shoved with her shoulder, got inside of Nabooru's swing, and slammed her shield into the Gerudo's torso. Nabooru was hit so hard she actually flipped - and then hit the ground on her feet five paces away. She regained her balance, and grinned, and Impa stalked toward her.

"You wished to speak to me in private," the king said. "In real privacy."

"I did," Ganondorf said, "if you allowed it, which I think you have." He winced as Impa hit Nabooru with the shield again. "Of course, I thought the fight would go on longer than this."

"Most do," Marense said, and Nabooru leaped over Impa, striking with her blade in mid-leap with a blow that would have cracked the Sheikah's skull except that the larger women had ducked under it, looking up at the Gerudo with calm eyes. "I will make you a deal. Tonight, after we take our meal, I will have a decanter of wine brought to my study. We can share it, and talk."

"And in return?"

"I have not decided yet," Marense said. "What do you say?"

"I accept, and gladly." Steel scraped on steel, and the two scimitars went spinning through the air, landing on the ground some ten feet away from Nabooru - who was standing with her hands raised, the blunt tip of Impa's sword pressed against her sternum. Zelda laughed and clapped, not even having to declare Impa the winner, and Impa smiled tightly and Nabooru gave the same in return, a look of respect and a kind of determination that Ganondorf was all too familiar with.

"Excellent. I will send someone for you."

* * *

><p>The wine was strong and spiced and good, hitting a particular place of thirst which was rarely quenched in Ganondorf, somewhere water only barely touched. They drank in the firelight of the king's study, with the guards standing at the door, far enough away that the two sovereigns could talk without being overheard. For a time, though, they said nothing, just drinking wine and watching the fire burn. It was cold in this castle, even on a night like that one. So much wind, perhaps. Once Marense got up and put a new log on the fire, took his seat again, and was quiet.<p>

They were coming to the dregs when Marense said, "I had thought you would ask to marry my daughter."

Ganondorf looked up from his glass, more surprised than he wanted to allow. He took a sip of his wine, and near the bottom it was getting bitter but he liked that taste, too. "That," he paused after the word, considering his phrasing carefully, "would be politically expedient, yes."

"This is the first time the thought has crossed your mind," the Hylian said, looking at Ganondorf with widening eyes. "It's never occurred to you before now."

"No, it has not." He set down his glass. "Gerudo do not marry."

"I have heard. But a king..."

"Needs an heir?"

"Yes. Well, not _strictly_ that, but a king, politically, may have allowances made."

Ganondorf grunted. "You think of our culture as being like your own, Marense, and you cannot be blamed for it, but it is not so." He leaned forward in his chair. "Suppose I were to tell you that the Gerudo are very strictly matrilineal. That makes sense, I hope. A daughter is raised by the entire tribe, but if she wants to know her mother she can; her father she cannot know, nor does she ever feel the need to. We say that siring matters for horses, but not for Gerudo."

"This much I know, Ganondorf. I am an outsider, but I am still your king, and I make it a habit to know my subjects."

"I do not mean to offend. But the one point is tied into the other. When a Gerudo wishes to have a daughter, she will find someone to father the child, become pregnant, and give birth to the child so that they are raised by the community. Hylian families are small things, subsets of the larger community, but for the Gerudo the community _is_ the family. All of my people are my sisters, and my aunts, and my cousins. You see?

"Marriage, as practiced by the Hylians, is about _ownership_. Ownership of the family, ownership of the children, ownership of the wife." He looked at Marense, who was scowling. "You think this said in error, or in jest, but it is not. Adultery among Hylians is a grave matter, but among the Gerudo it does not exist. We have our emotional connections with one another, but they are not exclusive, and they do not have to be permanent."

"So, marrying a foreign princess to secure peace with that kingdom-"

"Nonsensical. It would require her to enter into a relationship that my country does not recognize, and I would be committing an enormous crime by claiming ownership of someone. My people would think I was reducing your daughter's status to an object, and they would deal with this offense _very_ harshly."

"Hrm." Marense sipped at his wine, thought for a moment, and then drained the cup. "An interesting thought. I should like to borrow some books from your library, if you might make recommendations."

"As you wish."

"You are pensive, Ganondorf, but now I am following my own thoughts. This tension between our people at least partially stems from our cultural differences, our differing ideas of - of _ownership_, I suppose." Marense was a careful man and did not relate this to thievery, but Ganondorf made this connection in his mind anyway and his blood began to boil. "But on the same note, I do not believe that what we want can possibly be that different. We all want food in our bellies, and a warm place to sleep, and to be able to work for our communities."

"That is true," Ganondorf said. "Perhaps not so, on some points, between our people, but between kings I think it is true."

"I know you are passionate about your people, Ganondorf. Your letters speak to that passion, your very _handwriting_ speaks to the earnestness of your desires. We are entering into a very long relationship, you and I, so I know you are willing to work to bear that passion fruit. It is likely you will continue to work with my daughter when _she_ is sovereign, too. But I want to ask you now, Ganondorf, because the wine has set my thoughts wandering down rarely trodden paths and this may be the only time we can speak earnestly for years: what would you do for your people, if you had to? How far would you go to secure their lives and their happiness?"

Here Ganondorf took pause, because this ground was dangerous. He had been treading on dangerous ground for some time, but Marense was the sort of man who had been lusting after this sort of conversation with rare fervor, and had made many allowances simply because Ganondorf was another king. This, though, was different: how easy it would be to lie to this man, to secure his own impression of magnanimity and leverage that later on, or even to just tell him the truth and let the entire house of cards collapse around his ears. He thought about the Gorons in their mountain stronghold, and the Deku Tree which would be dead soon if it was not dead already, of Lord Jabu Jabu which would even now be growing very sick, and he thought about how it would be too easy to sow the same chaos here. But no. No, he needed to get closer to his goal, to continue down the path to the golden power. To that end he had to seem to be what Marense wanted, and what Marense wanted was power over someone whom he might otherwise fear. He could give him that.

"Even allowing my passion to speak, Your Grace," he said, "I am only loyal to Hyrule."

"Speak freely, and fear no repercussion."

"I am loyal firstly to Hyrule," he said, and looked Marense in the eye, and saw the Hylian king flinch. "But allowing my passion to speak? For my people I would burn the world."

The King of Hyrule was quiet for a long time, and Ganondorf let that quiet stretch out, and the two of them watched the fire. After a time the king spoke again.

"You were young at the start of the war - I would be surprised if you could walk. Even when it ended, you would have not yet been a man."

"No, my king."

"And your predecessor," he made a sign with his hand, and did not speak the name, "had been dead for nearly thirty years before you were born. I have thought often about your people, about a tribe of women who, once a century, give birth to the apotheosis of men. I have wondered how differently the war might have gone if the Gerudo had had a king."

"Hyrule would have endured," Ganondorf said, and Marense looked at him. For a moment Ganondorf thought he might see through that, but he did not, and he grasped Ganondorf by his arm and gave it a fraternal shake. He got up to add another log to the fire, and called for another decanter of wine, and only when his back was turned did Ganondorf allow himself to smile.


	8. Chapter 8

Far away, a boy placed a sword into a pedestal and walked away from it, while a ball of light ascended into the light of the sun and was gone. As this happened, several things slid into place, and the course of history was forever changed.

Ganondorf had been sleeping less and less for the past few years, and dreaming more rarely still. That evening, however, he took his rest, his belly full of good wine and his brain awash with the possibilities of a bright new day. That the dream would come to him again did not seem a possibility, nor that it should be so real, so vivid, and so strange.

Once more he was in a place of infinite sky and infinite water, reflected so that only sky surrounded him in every direction. It had been so long and his thoughts were momentarily in the dream-fog, so that he did not remember the place at first. He thought he would fall, but spreading his feet he found his balance.

Then the air split behind him and memory came to him in a torrent, and by the time the darkness had coalesced he had called his power to him and with a roar he turned and leaped, and the flame-haired monster looked at him with wide eyes as he drove his fist into its nose with all the power in his body. The impact sent a shockwave up his arm and he felt one of his knuckles break, but the demon staggered. He landed in front of it, grabbed it by the shoulders, and drove his right knee into its abdomen. His thigh screamed with the impact and the armor over his knee shattered, but there was some give and that meant he could kill this thing, he just had to-

Then its right hand closed around his head and smashed him down into the firmament, and the world shook.

"You _dare_ strike me?" the demon said, and lifted him up, and hurled him bodily away. He landed and felt his leg break, and he roared as he bounced. When he landed on his front he dug his hands into the ground beneath the water, and roared again, but the demon was already in front of him, standing with its arms crossed, sneering. "What power do you think you have here, little king?"

Ganondorf ground his teeth, and gathered his power into himself - and then he became aware of the demon doing the same thing, and when he looked up power rose from it like black fire, licking at the air around it, swallowing light, darkening the very landscape.

"That power," the demon said, "that _black_ magic. You are only a fledgling in its use, and I am its _progenitor_. Do not start a fight you cannot win; I am only here to talk, and give warning."

"Speak," Ganondorf said, fighting the urge to jam his thumbs into the demon's eyes. "Speak your cryptic lies and be gone from this place."

The demon's foot shifted, and for a moment Ganondorf thought it would kick him, but it did not.

"No lies here," the demon said, and its eyes were burning. "Perhaps you would prefer them to the truth, but I will offer you no succor here. You have _failed_. Your plan has come to nothing before it even began."

"What does that mean?"

"The soul of the hero and the blood of the goddess," the demon said, its scowl turning into something else, a parody of human expression so full of hate that Ganondorf had no reference by which to understand it _as_ expression, like a child had painted on its features, its teeth a forest and its eyes twin suns in its head, "have found their iterations in answer to my hatred, as they _must_. And they have won, as happens with imperfect iterations."

Ganondorf roared as he got to his feet, putting all of his weight on his broken leg and finding that it held because he commanded it to, "What are you _saying_? Make sense!"

"I am saying that your plan was doomed to failure, and failed. The Sacred Stones are worthless, now, and the golden power forever beyond your reach. The repercussions of your failure have sent ripples through time, reaching back to _now_, to the time when the cascade of their efforts began."

"Nothing has failed yet," Ganondorf said, no longer sure about this dream, or whatever it was. "There is nothing that will stop me. I will have the stones, and the royal treasure, and I will take the Temple of Time for myself. I will rule this land; I will rule the world."

"You will rule nothing," the demon said, and the power built around him, the flames of darkness took shape as something else, as serpents whose heads reached up into the sky. "You have failed, Ganondorf, and are powerless. Take that knowledge with you into the waking world."

Then the power came crashing down onto him, and Ganondorf awoke.

* * *

><p>He sat up in his bed, his teeth bared and his brain afire. It took him a moment to remember where he was.<p>

He looked about him; he was on a pallet on the floor, in keeping with his people's customs, and all around him were his sisters. None had felt him wake, though Nabooru was turning restlessly in her sleep. The room was lavishly furnished, though the dressing had been removed from the bed at the Gerudo's request. The window was tall and open to the air, and he rose.

He sisters were gathered around him in a protective spiral. He could not step past them without waking them up. But anger was burning in his mind, frustration and rage at the dream, at the feeling of prophecy barely constrained. What did it mean? How could his dream speak of time's flow as if it could be reversed, or repercussions of events not yet come to pass felt in the now?

"Powerless," he muttered to himself, and he stepped into the air, and walked a foot above the floor, never in danger of disturbing his sisters.

"Powerless," he said again, and came to the window, and stepped out of it. He walked further in the air, away from the tower where the guests slept, and rose higher. His magic filled the air as he rose and rose, and he knew he would not be seen because guards did not look up in the night.

He ceased to rise and then looked down, and the entirety of the castle grounds were splayed beneath him: the castle keep where the king held his court, and the four towers arranged about it, the battlements that served to fortify, and the garden that filled in the negative spaces with explosions of green, explosions of life. They dreamed down there, the royal family and his sisters and everyone, not knowing that he was above them.

He looked up, into the sky, where dwelt the gods. Still above him. Still playing with him and his people, arranging their fates across boundaries he could not perceive.

"Powerless," he said, and gathered power into himself. If anyone had looked up at that moment, as he raised his hands into the air, they would have seen a new star wreathed in darkness, a bright point of light roaring in the center of a spinning void. It roared as it grew, and only the wind kept the guards below from hearing it, hearing how it angrily drank at the air as he fed it strength.

He could see the results of it all in his minds eye: in a moment he would level the castle, shattering the battlements and toppling the towers, splitting the foundation beneath the keep so that it would split like an overripe fruit. The very land would bear the scar of his magic, and if anyone or anything in the castle should survive the initial eruption then they would not live long when his killing power pervaded the air around them. In an instant, in an _instant _he would change the shape of history, and all the world would feel the scar of his wrath.

But he did not fling down his power; the Temple of Time remained, and though he was powerful he did not have the strength to break the barrier on that place. For all of his strength, there were powers greater than his own, and it was not through childish shows of force that he would overcome them. Only patience and cunning could win those fights. Such was the anger he felt, at the gods and at the people below him, that he entertained the idea of marshaling his power - in three decades, or four, there would be nothing that could keep him from the Sacred Realm, Door of Time or no, and with that power he would seize the golden force for himself.

"No," he said, and let the power go, because his desire was greater than his hatred. Through guile and cunning he would win the Triforce, and it would not take him decades. It would not even take him years. The thought of it, of golden light, cleansed the anger from his mind.

"I will show them powerless," he said, and he let go of his magic so that it disappeared. He descended, and went back to the window, and took his place on the floor.

But he did not sleep again that night.


	9. Chapter 9

Morning came, as it did, and no one in the castle knew how close they had come to annihilation in the night, how the whim of a wizard could have snuffed them out. One, perhaps, suspected, but she said nothing.

Breakfast was small but filling, and the castle was alive with activity and noise. Another three sisters Ganondorf sent into Hyrule Castle Town as part of their leave, and they obeyed him without question, but he saw that they hesitated for the same reason that the castle servants were filled with so much new energy: the court had reconvened, and it would be time for the Gerudo delegation to present itself soon. He bid them to return at midday, and they were gone.

The preparations for the day felt long, but they were not: the Gerudo spent time mending and brightening their clothing and Ganondorf's, polishing armor and blades to a shine. Two of them would wear the veils of personal guards, all in black, while the rest would be dressed in the white veils of lower-ranked sentinels. Nabooru alone would be dressed apart from them, as Ganondorf's advisor, and the king of the Gerudo spent a good deal of time making sure his armor was in the appropriate state. His guards and Nabooru, he was sure, assumed his singular attention to be an acknowledgement of the importance of this meeting with the Hylian king, but it was not so. Last night's dream and visitation still preyed upon his thoughts, and he was wondering at their import. He very much wanted to hurt something, but that opportunity would not present itself for what would feel like a long, long time.

Midday came and the three returned and donned their veils, and the entire party was made ready. None showed any nerves whatsoever, and Ganondorf wondered that Nabooru did not notice that; but then, perhaps she did. It was always possible, he acknowledged, that she knew everything that he had been planning. She was shrewd enough for it. But if that was the case, then she either approved or had failed to act against him for some other reason, and the distinction mattered very little to him.

They were escorted to the throne room by a herald, who announced Ganondorf as the King of the Gerudo and nothing more, as had been requested. Then Ganondorf and Nabooru and their personal guard entered the throne room, but it was very different from how it had appeared only two days before. Before it had been lavishly furnished with carefully embroidered carpets and lush tapestries hung at regular intervals, but it had still possessed an almost austere quality, as if the flooring and wall-hangings were natural parts of the room. Not so now, with the court gathered in one place.

Tiered seating had been set up on both sides of the hall, dark wood with purple velvet draped over it, and on these benches were seated the cream of the Hylian nobility, men and women in finery like the Gerudo had never seen. Silk and cashmere were everywhere, with the smell of foreign perfumes and spices pervading so that the sense of imported wealth was overwhelming. It was almost too much, Ganondorf thought, but it kept going, assaulting his eyes with the colors of their dress, yellows and reds and purples brighter than flowers, an explosion of light all around him, like walking through the garden outside only these buds were the size of people. And all of them, _all_ of them were looking at him and his retinue, peering over beards or from behind fans, weighing, judging, more than one hand covering their hearts in shock at the sight of him - or reaching down to grasp at their wallets at the sight of his sisters. He felt an almost uncontrollable urge to rise, then, to throw aside all artifice and unleash his magic there, to let his power flow and wilt these fat nobles like the flowers they resembled - and Nabooru's hand touched his arm and the feeling passed. But he could not look at them without boiling over and so kept his eyes locked forward, on the king. The princess was not with him.

He kneeled first, and the other Gerudo kneeled behind him at his signal. Ganondorf kept his head bowed, knowing he should not look up until addressed, but he had seen the King's face: implacable and calm, the perfect representation of a monarch in the midst of his subjects. There was much to be read there, for one so inclined.

"Ganondorf, my friend," Marense Johansen Hyrule said, "it does my heart good that you should come to me, your king and regent, in full faith and fealty, surrounded by such fine examples of your proud people. Let me extend my welcome to you," and it went on, becoming the background buzz against which Ganondorf's thoughts would flit for the next several minutes. This was all pageantry, a show put on for the nobility, and Marense had explained that to him in the quiet hour after the wine had run out and they had sat sipping at water and nibbling at bread. Let them see you now, he had said, let them think of you as an outsider or a freak or a pet or whatever they want, but let them also see your loyalty to Hyrule and the surety of your faith. Ganondorf would allow this indignity, as Marense had said, because these were the inroads by which his own rule would be established. Let them think whatever they would of him. Even if they lived beyond the next few days - and he knew that they would not - they would see him not as a conqueror or a stranger but as a servant of the King of Hyrule, equal in standing to them regardless of his heritage.

He smiled and felt a whisper run through the crowd. They did not like his smile; well enough, then. Let them wonder at it. Let them whisper, and plot, and fear. Every eye in that place was on him, and only the king would not see his teeth. That suited him well.

Something felt off. Another pair of eyes on him, like an itch on his neck, on the side of his face. He looked to his right, to a window overlooking a courtyard-

Wimple and green hat. Princess Zelda and a boy he didn't recognize, with a fairy from the woods flitting about his head. Kokiri? No, the Kokiri never left the woods. Perhaps. But what drew his eye more was that Zelda was facing away from the window, and the boy had only been glancing at him and was now looking at her. In her hands she was holding something blue, and Ganondorf could very faintly hear notes played through the glass pane of the window.

The ocarina. The song of time.

Realization hit him like an avalanche as he turned his head back to look at the floor again. The boy was here, and the princess was showing him the ocarina. She _had_ the ocarina, like Ganondorf has suspected. Everything was about to be so much easier. But something was wrong. He did not know why, but something was off, as if things had failed to align according to how they should have been. Something had happened.

The king finished his long speech, and Ganondorf rose at his command. He was no longer smiling. He paid his respects, and made his obeisance, but where he should have been exulting in a plan coming together he felt chaos building in his mind. The demon in his dream had said it, first, and now it was real. He could feel it in the air as he bowed low, as honeyed words passed his lips, as he ingratiated himself to the king and to the Hylian nobility. Something had changed.

Something was _wrong_.

* * *

><p>The day went on for a long time, with Ganondorf paying his respects to the king and making a speech and meeting the nobles of the Hylian court afterward. He hated each of them more than the last, could feel their disdain for him and for his sisters, but that took a backseat behind his unsettled feeling. The demon in his dream was haunting him. He tried to convince himself that it was only his anxieties, but that was not true. There were no true coincidences, and there had never been a Gerudo king for whom dreams were merely dreams.<p>

The day was over, and he and his sisters took to their rest, forgoing the balls and parties of the Hylian nobles. This was, perhaps, a mistake, but the Hylians perhaps liked him better for it. Better that he not intrude on their festivities. But he could not think of them long.

His sisters slept, Nabooru slept, and he rose. He went to the window, and lit through the air. He knew where the princess slept, and so flew to that tower. She would be asleep now, or nearly. This jeopardized everything, he _knew_ it did, but he had to know. He had to see what had gone wrong.

He landed on the princess's windowsill and heard the attendant's voice, droning as if reading by rote. He stepped into the room, lowering himself from the sill, and the sound of his boots on the stone floor was very loud. There was a perfect frozen moment as he looked at the room.

The princess was still wearing her dayclothes, though her hair was down, falling past her shoulders. She was brushing it with an ivory comb, seated at a vanity with a mirror, facing away from Ganondorf, staring at his reflection. Her attendant, Impa, was on a chair next to her, a thick book in her hands, still in her armor. Two beds lay between the pair and Ganondorf: the longer and more slender one, nearer the door, would be Impa's, for the rare time when she slept. The shorter and wider and more lavishly furnished one would be the princess's, and the canopy that hung over it shimmered in the light of the candles by which Impa was reading and Zelda was brushing. For that one brief moment all three people in the room looked at each other, and nothing happened. Then a lot happened, and very quickly.

Ganondorf had seen Impa spar, the absolute mastery she had over what was _not_ her preferred form of combat, and had been told that it was nothing compared to how brutally she could fight. That in no way prepared him for her leaping across both beds, her feet barely touching the bedding of her own mattress and launching herself off of one the post's of the princess's bed, and kicking him square in the temple - all in the space of a heartbeat. He reeled, staggered, and she landed on the ground in front of him just as the book she had been reading hit the floor next to Zelda's vanity.

A knee sank into his ribs and a fist collided with his abdomen, then his shoulder, then his _throat_, a blow that would have killed someone of normal constitution. And Impa did not stop; she used his size against him, his enormous height and his weight and his sure footing allowing her to spin off of him, smashing his ankle even if she could not make him fall. She kicked the back of his knee so that it bent, vaulted off of the front of the same knee, and struck him hard across the eyes with the side of her palm. He did not shout, but in his fury he struck out at her, a blow that would have broken even _her_ in half - but she flowed around his arm like water, grabbing him beneath the armpit, bracing her hip against his thigh and hurling him with all of her considerable strength. He had a strange sense of weightlessness as he sailed across the room and crashed into the wall - opposite the door, away from Zelda.

Then he was on his feet and his fighting instinct kicked in, and the pain in his knee and his eyes and his abdomen fueled his rage, she was coming at him again and now there was a knife in her hand. She leaped, and he bared his teeth and held up his hands - and she stopped in midair, frozen. Her expression turned to one of confusion and shock for only a moment before Ganondorf heaved with his magic and sent her hurtling into the opposite wall, hitting it with so much force that the mortar between the stones rained dust on the floor. He splayed his fingers and Impa's limbs were stretched taut, splayed in every direction, and he charged her, Zelda utterly forgotten as his vision reddened with his fury.

He put no magic into the blow he landed on Impa's chest, but he grinned enormously as he felt her armor buckle and her ribs begin to give, and she coughed hot blood onto his face. Another blow like that would crush her heart, and he would be done with her, and everything would come toppling down and _let it then_ because no patience and no trickery could compare to _this_-

"Enough!" Zelda said, and he stopped, his fist drawn back for the killing blow. He looked at her and she was standing next to her vanity, her comb set aside, her hands folded in front of her. She did not have the bearing of a child, in that moment: he was looking at a queen. "That is enough. There is no more need for violence."

"Princess!" Impa said, her voice croaking and raw, barely able to rise above a whisper. "The guards. Call the guards!"

"No," the princess said, and she did not look at Impa: her eyes stayed locked with Ganondorf's, as if the shy girl who would not even look at him a day ago no longer existed. "Ganondorf, release my attendant and there will be no more violence."

"_Princess!_"

"I have no cause to believe you," Ganondorf said, and it was true. "There are loyalties more powerful than mere obedience. She will attack me or spirit you away even if you order her not to."

Zelda looked at him, her mouth pressed into a thin line, and she seemed older than she should be, just from the look in her eyes. "This is the part where you release her, and she blinds you, and then grabs me and runs. We will flee, and we will slip past you, I think because you allow it. You and your guards will," she paused, swallowed. "You take the castle, or the parts of it that matter. You murder my father, the king, who cannot even raise a hand against you. You chase us on your horse, and we get away, but not before I leave behind the family's sacred treasure, the Ocarina of Time. The boy I entrust it to gains entrance to the Temple of Time, and you follow him into the Sacred Realm, and all is lost."

Ganondorf's thoughts shattered, and a great silence filled his mind. All of those words were true, as absolutely true as it was possible for words to _be_, but they were not things that had happened yet. They were only plans, half-formed plans that still floated on the ether of his thoughts.

"Something is wrong," Ganondorf said. He had not released Impa from the wall, but he was no longer in a killing position, and was facing Zelda now. "Something has changed. What happened? Did you do this, with your gift of prophecy?" _Would killing you fix it_?

"It is not prophecy. It has already happened. The things you do here, and that are done in answer, echo back and forth through time, back to now. I know what you will do, Ganondorf, in intimate detail - or, rather, what you would have done."

"What did you _do_?"

She drew herself up as tall as she could. "I have sent it away, Ganondorf. The Ocarina of Time is in the hands of the boy you saw while you paid your respects to my father. He knew, as I did, what would happen. He has taken the key to the Sacred Realm and left this land on a swift horse. By now he will have passed beyond Hyrule's borders, in what direction I do not know. The Sacred Stones are worthless to you now, Ganondorf - without the Ocarina of Time the door to the Sacred Realm will remain closed no matter what."

Something in him was boiling, the heat rising up from his insides and into his skull. There was a fire, and he wanted to let it out, to consume everything. He did not. What she said was true, he could feel it as she said it, and he did not fully understand but he would in time. Until then he had to retain some measure of control.

"You know what I have done," Ganondorf said, "and what I would do. Why shouldn't I kill you and your attendant now, before you give me away to your father?"

"Because you are not a fool," she said, "and neither am I. If you kill us here, it will become known, and my father will wage war against you, and as powerful as you are you cannot win against the united peoples of Hyrule. The Sages live, and together their magic is far greater than yours." He flinched, and she must have seen it. "You know it to be true. You can take your retinue and leave, now, with no further bloodshed, and you still have the weapon of deniability. I will go to my father, and I will tell him everything. In time he will believe me, but at first his doubts will be large enough that he will be unable to act. You will marshal your forces, and when the wrath of Hyrule falls on you you will have time to fight. Maybe to win."

A thought occurred to him, a sound in the endless quiet of his mind. "If what you say is true," and he believed it was, "then you would be better served by letting me kill you. If your only goal is to stop me, then why not die, and let your blood signal my defeat?"

Another long silence, and Zelda looked at Impa, and what passed between her and her attendant was not for Ganondorf to know. She looked at him again, and there was a resignation there that he did not understand.

"I do not trust anyone else to stop you," she said. "Now, please. Impa believes me already. She will not attack you and she will not run, not if it means the death of my father. Agreed, Impa?"

"Yes, Princess," Impa said, her voice barely a whisper and her face twisted into a mask of anguish.

Ganondorf released his magic, and Impa fell to her knees. She was only there a moment before she staggered to her feet, picked her knife up off the floor, and stood between Ganondorf and the princess. She was sizing him up, trying to decide if she could kill him before he used his magic again. She must have decided not, because she did not attack.

"I will leave at first light," Ganondorf said, "after paying my respects to your father." He turned, and walked to the window, and looked back at the pair. The girl had stepped out from behind the Sheikah. It was all he could do to keep himself from killing them both, from painting the room with their blood. "This is not over."

"No," the crown princess said. "No, it is not."

He stepped onto the sill and launched himself into the air, leaving the room behind.


	10. Chapter 10

A covered wagon came to the gates of Hyrule Castle Town. Even though it had been some years since Ganondorf's visit to the castle, there had been no motion from either side. Rumors persisted that Zelda was pushing her father to investigate the Gerudo lands, but that the king was refusing the idea on its face. None of this was enough to increase the guard at the gate, and there were not enough of those to bother searching one wagon as it trundled into the marketplace, creaking and rattling.

The sun was high and bright. A crisp, clear day, like many visited on Hyrule during the summer. The wind was so fine.

The wagon trundled past bustling crowds and stalls and larger shops, the driver cloaked in black and making eye contact with no one. The horses moved with no more than the necessary vigor, just active enough that they would not draw attention by their sloth. No one noticed as the wagon passed out of town on its way to the castle. It wound around the cliff face, and the guards took note of it as it drew near.

It pulled up to the first gate, and the driver pulled the horses to a stop, and a guard walked to the wagon.

"Hey now," he said, "making your way to the castle? What cargo is it you have there?"

The driver turned and said nothing, but reached back and pointed at the interior of the wagon with a hand made of bleached white bone.

* * *

><p>Nabooru had followed Ganondorf's trail through the desert, past the Haunted Wasteland, and just when she thought he might be going to the Desert Colossus the trail went off in another direction entirely, deeper into the sands. She followed it with her band of hunters, women loyal to her who knew that they would not be seeking game. When they emerged from the sandstorm of the wasteland they drew short and took their time to absorb the import of this new site that Ganondorf had chosen as his staging grounds: of all the places in the world, only the Arbiter's Grounds were more sacred to the Gerudo than the Desert Colossus.<p>

Nabooru left her guards and their horses at the front entrance of the temple, knowing that they would not want to intrude upon the honored dead who were interred there. She went in alone, not knowing what she would find. It was impossible to know how many people Ganondorf had brought with him based on his tracks; it had looked like he was alone, but skilled enough trackers would be able to walk behind him without leaving a trace of having done so.

The Arbiter's Grounds were a tower and a temple and a shrine and a tomb all at once, extending four enormous levels above the sands and an unknown number below it. The levels above were meant for ceremonial purposes, for worship, and for judgment. All of those who had committed great crimes against the Gerudo had been tried here over the centuries, and their bodies were entombed in the lower levels alongside Gerudo champions whose souls were to keep the evil ones bound. Deeper still were the mass sepulchers of the Gerudo, where the bones of all the sisterhood would mingle until they had turned to dust.

Nabooru walked through the chambers of the first floor, which was itself meant as a place for worship, lined with statues of the nameless Goddess of the Sands. Nabooru stopped in front of one idol, the face of which was framed by a crown of serpents, and offered up a prayer. If the goddess would listen anywhere, it would be in this place. She touched her heart and then the heart of the statue, and prayed for an end to madness. The goddess did not answer her, and she walked on.

She exited the first hallway and walked through chambers which strangers could not know, but which the Gerudo were taught the layout of as soon as they could walk. An enormous staircase led up to the second level of the temple, which was the true entrance to the place of worship. She passed through two chambers, the first filled with images of serpents and the second whose ceiling was a single mosaic image of the Goddess, before she came to the main audience chamber, an enormous room housing an enormous door flanked by four torches that burned with everlasting blue light. Ganondorf was seated in the middle of this room facing the door, wearing his black robes, his eyes shut and his mouth forming words in a language she did not know as dark power rolled off of him in waves. Aside from the four blue torches there were many more which burned with a normal fire, but they seemed darker in his presence. Everything did.

"Ganondorf," she said.

The spell broke, and he opened his eyes and looked over his shoulder. His eyebrows rose, but only for a moment.

"Nabooru. What brings you here? Is there news?"

"No," she said, and grimaced. "The Hylian King has sent no envoys. There is no indication that he means to move against us. I have sent sisters to Hyrule Castle Town to gather what intelligence they can, and hired Hylians to do the same where we can't walk unmarked, but there is nothing."

"There is not nothing," he said, and turned back to face the door. "Zelda still tries to convince Marense to move against us. Every day she seeks an audience with him, and every day she pleads her case."

"And every day she is denied," she said, crossing her arms and scowling at his back. "I do not know what dreams she has had, Ganondorf, or what dreams _you_ have had-"

"They are not dreams," he said, and it was not with any anger but she understood that it would not be possible to argue with him. "It is an opening of my thoughts, which occurred at the same time as hers. Something has happened. She knows what, but I do not. All I know is that the gods have moved against us again, and soon their servants will move in kind."

This was dangerous ground; Gerudo kings were known to experience things that other Gerudo could not, and Ganondorf was known throughout Hyrule as a very powerful wizard. Rumors still swarmed of his hand in some calamity for the Gorons, but it had been resolved quickly enough that rumor remained only that. Still, she couldn't help thinking that he was being paranoid, or giving in to the rare madness that sometimes plagued Gerudo kings. She wondered if he might begin to dream soon, and then forget the barrier between dreams and the waking world. She wondered, only for a moment, if he might need to be held in this place.

"I do not yet believe they will, Ganondorf. Even if Zelda knows some thing which you _might_ have done, you have not done it. The King of Hyrule is not a bad king, and is not the kind of tyrant who would go to war for a crime that has not been committed."

"Perhaps not," Ganondorf said. "Perhaps not. Perhaps he is the good and just king that the land needs to keep it ordered as it is, and separated according to the boundaries that already exist." She winced as his voice rose. "This would not be enough. The Princess's words sow discord and hatred against our people; distrust of us has been higher since our visit than at any other time since the civil war. At this rate, if I rely on diplomacy then I will not be able to have the fields for our people within my lifetime."

"That has always been _your_ dream, Ganondorf," she said, and instantly knew she had erred.

The dark power flowed off of Ganondorf again, and he rose and turned to face her. He was grinning, that particular grin which showed all of his teeth, not like a smile but as if he were about to kill something by biting it. "Yes. _My_ dream, that we should share in the bounties of the earth as readily as the other races. It is a dream that I will see fulfilled, Nabooru, and I will do whatever I have to to fulfill it." She said nothing, waiting. "You have been my confidant for my entire life, so I will share this with you now: there is a power guarded by the Hyrulian Royal Family, sealed beyond the gates of the Temple of Time."

"The Golden Power," she said, recalling ancient script written in the small, neat hand of a king.

"The _Triforce_," he said, and he was looking past her now. "The very power of the gods. With it, I would give the Gerudo what should be theirs by right of birth: our people will want for nothing, and be queens of this land."

Madness. Madness floated in the air between them, but something worse than madness, too, because Ganondorf was not truly mad, she did not think: he was _hungry_. She could feel his hunger from five paces away, a deep-seated thing that would swallow the world.

"We would never desire to rule over the other races," she said, though she knew there were those among her sisters who would want just that. "And even if we did - the other peoples of the land would never see that power in your hands, Ganondorf. Or in anyone's hands. We are as the gods have made us, and it is not a terrible thing." She swallowed as his expression did not change. "Is this why you are preparing? Do you fear the King of Hyrule will learn of your plans?"

"There is no doubt he will. But by the time it is known, and by the time the people of Hyrule marshal their forces, it will be much too late, and we will seize Hyrule and everything in it."

"Ganondorf, that is impossible. We are too few. There aren't enough Gerudo alive in the entire desert to form an army big enough to," and the words turned to ashes in her mouth, and the hissing of the flames sounded very loud. She looked around, glancing at the walls and into the shadows, seeing strange shapes dancing there in the light of the fires. She became very aware of herself, and of Ganondorf, and of the tremendous shadows that filled this sacred place, and of the many, many ghosts who lurked here. There was a place her mind refused to go, but she could feel herself up against some truth and she had to embrace it, to see it for all that it was. "What have you done?"

He said nothing, but his grin shifted into something else, an expression she did not know. He raised both of his hands, and in the corners of the room the tiling of the floor shattered, and the sand beneath it heaved and spat. She looked to each corner, back and forth as quickly as she could, so she knew that all at once figures began to rise from each break in the floor. She did not understand what they were at first, the way they moved, the shape of their limbs-and then she saw them, _really_ saw them. She saw the bleached whiteness of their limbs, the long silver spears in their hands, their too-long frames that let in light through every part because they had no torsos, just ribcages, no bodies, just hips holding up air. She saw the way their skulls were warped into the shape of helmets, at the burning red fire in their eyes, the same fire in Ganondorf's eyes, and the skeleton things rose out of the ground, and more rose behind them.

She fell to her knees and vomited.

"It is magic that fuels the Stalchildren," Ganondorf said, "a natural magic, born of conflict and hatred. They did not exist two decades ago - the wars that raged in Hyrule Field gave birth to them. I can recreate that magic, now, and so we have the Stalfos to form the backbone of our army."

She spat on the ground and wiped her mouth on the back of her hand, and tears were streaming down her face and she nearly retched again but she fought it down. "What have you _done?_ Ganondorf, these are the bones of our people, of our beloved dead!"

"Not just theirs," Ganondorf said. "My predecessors are here, too, and more than their bones. Their wraiths are still powerful, still _angry_, and would see a terror wrought on any living thing. I need only exert my authority, and then direct them."

"The kings," she said, and she fought the urge to weep in disgust and terror. "You have brought back the bad kings. Oh, Ganondorf. Ganondorf. Do you know what you've done? The forces you've disturbed?"

"Better than you, I think," he said, and now his mouth was set in a hard line. "Though not, perhaps, better than the Hylians."

"What?"

"Let me ask you a question," Ganondorf said. "Do you know how many skeletons, broken down into bones, can fit onto a covered wagon?"

* * *

><p>The tarp over the wagon exploded, and the guard shielded his eyes with his hand. The sound was like hail falling on a hard roof, and when he realized he was not being struck he looked up.<p>

The driver threw its hood aside, and its head was a skull, huge and long like that of a horse crossed with that of a man. It shoved a sword's tip into his chest, punching through his armor like parchment, piercing his heart. The guard's last act was instinctual, tied up in the training that was his duty: he grabbed hold of the blade with his left hand (it cut through his gauntlet as easily as his armor and blood ran there but he did not feel it) and with his right he thrust his pike into the center of the driver's robe. Then he died, his teeth bared in defiance of the death that had come for him.

The driver kicked the guard's corpse off of its sword, and the pike fell out of its own accord. It looked down the path; the other guards were coming. It looked up; the bones of dozens of bodies were swirling in the air above it. It chittered, its skull shivering at the sound coming out of its hollow throat.

The storm of bones slammed into the ground, arranging themselves into their new unnatural alignments, and seven dozen Stalfos sprang up, shining pikes and swords in their hands. The guards stopped in their tracks, arrested by horror. The driver, the Old Dead King, screeched the charge, and the Stalfos surged. The sergeant of the guard roared for her corporal to run and warn the castle, and the corporal turned and fled.

The sergeant raised her fist and the rest of the guards fell in beside her, spears at the ready. They were hopelessly outnumbered, being only a dozen. The sergeant shouted to charge; perhaps she said "For the King!" It is impossible to know; no one would ever hear the story repeated.

The guards charged forward to meet their end as the Old Dead King flew threw the air, screaming like wind cutting between desert stones, its swords flashing in the air as it sailed past the charging Stalfos and fell upon the Hylian line.

That was the beginning, and those were the first casualties of war. They were not the last that day, to Hyrule's sorrow, and more blood would flow ere bone was shattered and the sun set.

* * *

><p>Numbness had seized Nabooru's body. She felt apart from herself, as if controlling herself from a distance, seeing her will enacted by her limbs but unable to ascribe any significance to it. Ganondorf was still talking, though he had turned away from her.<p>

"Not all of the wraiths will obey me now; Kotake and Koume are even now sealing away one in particular who I think is my predecessor. He will take years to bend to my will, but when he does..."

"You cannot do this," she said, from very far away. "You will kill us all."

"I will elevate us," Ganondorf said, gesturing at the fires in their cradles so that they leaped and danced. "Today the King of Hyrule will die, and that will be only the beginning. If I am lucky then Zelda will be dead as well, and-"

The sound of steel whispering was very loud in that place, and Nabooru realized she had drawn her swords. The weight felt good in her hands. Ganondorf's back was rigid, and the set of his shoulders told her everything that flitted through his mind. Or nothing at all, she realized. She no longer knew this man, and that realization was good too, lent her own motion solidity and weight so that she was no longer adrift.

"Your hunger for power has taken on the color of madness. You would embroil the Gerudo in a war they cannot win, even with your magic. You would damn all of your sisters to Hylian prisons and Hylian gallows for a dream, for _nothing_. We will disappear, Ganondorf. We will be no more." She gathered her strength into her thighs as she sank into a crouch, judging the distance between herself and the king. With a leap she would be upon him before he could turn. Even Ganondorf was not that fast. "I cannot let you do this."

"You betray me?" he said, his voice calm and level.

"I love you," she said, "more than I have ever loved any of our people. But you are lost, and you are too strong to be allowed to wander in this madness. I love you, but I love our people more."

She did not know why she had not leaped yet. Ganondorf lowered his head, and his hands came up so that he rested his fingertips against his forehead. She was glad he was facing away, that she did not see his face. Now was the time to strike, _now_-

"In acknowledgment of your years of service," he said, "and out of respect for your love for me, I will forget that you bared steel against your king." His voice wavered on "forget," and her heart caught in her throat. "You are excused, Nabooru. Go home. Take our sisters with you, and wait for my return. We have a long and terrible task ahead of us."

"I cannot," she said, and the points of her swords sank down to the floor. "Don't you understand? You will kill us all for your ambition!"

"I fight for our people."

"_You fight for yourself!_" The words echoed in the dark, bouncing back and forth from the walls, assaulting the two of them from every direction. The Stalfos watched them like silent judges. "You fight for your pride, and your greed, and your hatred! There is no love left inside of you save for a love I can't understand, and I will not remain to watch the man I have known since he was a _boy_ become a monster. I cannot see you become this evil thing!"

"Then _go_," he said, and turned to face her. She had expected some sorrow on his face, the evidence of tears or tears withheld, but no such thing shaded his countenance. His face was twisted with rage, a killing rage like she had never seen before, and she realized she was seeing him as he really was, how his enemies must have seen him, and her swords fell from her hands at the look in his eyes. "Go." He bared his teeth and his eyes were filled with a terrible yellow light, and when he shouted "_**GO!**_" the walls shook.

She turned and fled, her swords forgotten. She went out of the hall and into the anteceding chamber, and that is when Ganondorf began to scream. She flew down connecting staircases and through hallways, and his voice kept rising and rising, an anthem of hatred and fury expressed into a single throaty note. The statues of the goddess shed dust as his voice filled everything and his power shook the temple, and she ran, and she ran.

His voice was still rising as she dashed out of the entrance of the Arbiter's Grounds, and her terrified sisters were only barely keeping their horses under control. They needed no direction, and leaped onto their horses when she did, and as a body they fled into the swirling sands.

She looked back only once as his voice began to fade, drowned out by the wind, and a terrible light poured out of every entrance to that sacred place. She turned her face forward, squeezing her eyes shut, willing death on the sorrow she felt. She could not stay. She would not stay.

That was the last time she would ever see her king.


End file.
